


Vulnera Sanentur

by Zzzara



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Adventure & Romance, Anal Sex, And it suits them both, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Romance, Angst with a Happy Ending, Awkward First Times, Bonding, Bottom Draco Malfoy, Boyfriends, Boys In Love, Boys Kissing, Camping, Draco Malfoy Has Long Hair, Drama & Romance, Drarry long hair, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Roller Coaster, Emotional Sex, Emotions, Explicit Sexual Content, Falling In Love, Feelings, First Time, Forests, Gay Sex, HP Butterfly Fest 2019, Hand Jobs, Happy Ending, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Harry Potter Has Long Hair, Hogwarts, Horcrux Hunting, Horcruxes, Hurt/Comfort, Intergluteal Sex, Long Hair, Love, M/M, Making Love, Mother-Son Relationship, Narcissa Black Malfoy is a Good Parent, Not Epilogue Compliant, POV Alternating, POV Draco Malfoy, POV Harry Potter, Prompt 94, Prompt Fic, Resolved Sexual Tension, Romance, Room of Requirement, Saving the World, Sectumsempra, Sex In A Cave, Sexual Tension, Top Harry Potter, UST, Under the Influence of Horcruxes, Unresolved Sexual Tension, all was well, bond, like not quite shoulder-length long, sexual awakening, vulnera sanentur, well not LONG long but kinda longish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-11-22 23:56:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 51,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20882783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zzzara/pseuds/Zzzara
Summary: When Harry Potter fires a deadly curse at his "arch-enemy", he has no idea what the curse does.He has no idea he will soon beg Draco Malfoy's forgiveness and try his best to atone.He has no idea that the ugly bathroom incident he would rather forget will tangle and bind their lives together with no chance of escape.Navigating a treacherous path between Dumbledore's lies and Voldemort's orders, Draco is trapped and considered to be dead by both sides of the Wizarding War. Against the Golden Trio's wishes, he joins them on the Horcrux hunt. Except that he has no idea what he is hunting for.This is a love-story, a fight-story, very much compliant to the 6th and 7th 'Harry Potter' books and yet, very, VERY different.Because this time - after the Sectumsempra incident - Harry visited Draco in the hospital wing and tried to apologise.





	1. Sectumsempra

**Author's Note:**

> I must admit, I always was ultimately dissatisfied with the aftermath of the Sectumsempra scene in the 6th 'Harry Potter' book. The way JKR had handled it felt off to me, as though she failed Harry - the Harry we all know and love. Because Harry would behave differently in a situation where he almost killed another person. He absolutely would. And I decided to fix it. 
> 
> In this fic, Harry visited Draco in the hospital wing after the Sectumsempra incident, intending to right the wrongs and take responsibility for his actions.
> 
> The idea of this story had existed at the back of my mind for a very very long time, but somehow I'd never got to put it into words until this summer, when I saw the post on Tumblr announcing the HP Butterfly Fest. At that moment something 'clicked' in my head, and for about a month I was utterly crazy, writing this story every spare second I had. I simply must let it out.
> 
> Eternally grateful to my wonderful betas: Rinny @catastrophelake for your outstanding skills!  
CoCo @cportera, Sonia @too-long-epic-shit and Camila @iamlikehoney - you kindly offered your help in a moment of need, and you were quick, patient, supportive and amazing, thank you so so much! Without you, this fic wouldn't have made it to this fest. Also, I was in a really bad place at the time you were betaing this fic for me. Due to the huge amount of stress and certain events IRL, I was mentally and emotionally drained. Every day was a trial to my mental health, and my interactions with you about this fic brought me so much joy and fun and made things much much better. Thank you!<3  
Special shoutout to my friend Ann @nottooldtodream! Reading this story when it was already complete, you noticed and pointed out the biggest plothole I had no clue I'd created! Your little remark made me change and rewrite things to fix it and improve the story. Thank you! <3
> 
> Special thanks to the mods of this amazing fest for organising everything and making it possible.<3
> 
> *** !!! WARNING:  
Since this fic takes place in the 'Harry Potter' universe where wizards turn of age at 17 y.o. and contains explicit descriptions of sexual situations between Harry and Draco at their age of 17-and-a-half years, I faced an ambiguous issue while adding tags to this fic, since the participants are not quite 18 and are technically underage by our 'Muggle' laws and standards. At the same time, they both are legally of age in the setting of their universe. So I decided not to use a major archive warning 'underage' for this fic and chose 'Author chose not to use archive warnings' instead. I think I should point it out.  
*****
> 
> *Don’t repost/copy this work to any other websites without my permission.
> 
> *Disclaimer: All characters belong to JK Rowling and other rightful owners.
> 
> *Update 2020: The author of this work does not support J.K. Rowling's transphobic opinions.

**V U L N E R A S A N E N T U R**

_M a y t h e w o u n d s b e h e a l e d_

**Chapter 1**

**SECTUMSEMPRA**

** _*_ ** ** _Sectumsempra_ ** _ is a very dark curse that derives from the Latin words _

_‘sectum’ – ‘cut’ and ‘sempra’ – ‘forever’ and causes a cut that will not heal ever._

"Malfoy." 

His whisper is barely audible, as though he doesn't want me to hear - not really - as though he's afraid I might wake and open my eyes.

In vain he frets; he can't wake me. I'm not asleep to begin with. I'm not going to open my eyes either. I want him to leave, and now he's going to, as he always does. I know it's not his first visit here. It's not even the second. It's the fourth.

When for the first time I realised he was standing by my bed, for one wild moment I thought he came to finish me off. The mere thought was ridiculous. I'd never feared Potter before, and yet... I'd never imagined he was capable of gutting anyone, leaving them to die in a pool of their own blood. 

Until he did just that. 

To me. 

And proved me wrong, slashing me open from neck to hip with a single whip of his wand.

With my eyes closed, I felt his presence looming over me. I was too weak to even squeal, the tiniest movement was agony. My chest was burning, my neck, my stomach, my lower belly. Although Snape had patched me up, it would take time to heal. That vile thing Potter threw at me was eating at my skin from the inside. 

Nothing happened. He did nothing, said nothing, just stood there. There was a heavy sigh, and another, and a long silence, until I realised he didn't come to kill me. It seemed he wanted to talk. Whatever in hell could Potter and I possibly talk about? I didn’t understand until it finally dawned on me that he came to apologise. To right the wrongs and all that shit.

It made me sick. And furious.

He could stuff his apologies up his righteous arse. I kept my eyes closed.

I don't know how long he stood there, but while pretending to be asleep, I passed out for real. When I woke up, Potter was gone.

He came again. 

The next day, as soon as I glimpsed his mop of hair at the door, I closed my eyes.

It was pretty much the same as the day before: he approached, he stood, he sighed, he said nothing and eventually left. 

The same yesterday, only he lingered longer and sat in a chair by the bed, creaking its back, shuffling his feet.

Where the fuck was Pomfrey every time he came? I suspected she was aware of his visits, allowing the hero to do the fucking _right thing_. Damn him.

Pomfrey says I'm almost healed and will be out of here soon enough. Can't wait.

_Can't wait_ to be spared of Potter's presence. He wouldn't stalk me around once I got back to my dorm, would he? 

I have a task to complete, besides. 

_Fuck_

I don't want to do this. I don't. I am failing, I already have. Snape offered help; maybe it's not too late to take it? He'd made an Unbreakable Vow, he said. He's bound to help anyway. Whether I refuse or accept, it makes no difference. 

Oh, what a relief that would be to pass this task to someone else. To Snape. He is strong and always knows what to do. Unlike me, he is not a coward. I am weak and tired. So tired. I would stay in bed forever so that I wouldn't have to do anything, and maybe eventually the Dark Lord would forget about me. Snape would probably accomplish it for me. He would. He’d made a Vow, he said.

"Malfoy."

Fuck, he's still here.

The chair creaks. Keeping my breath even, I don't move in the hope that my face doesn't betray me. I feel his stare. It's weird: my skin itches - my cheeks, my eyelids, my forehead - his gaze lingers, roaming over my face.

"Malfoy."

He touches my shoulder, and I nearly jump out of my skin. What the fuck does he think he is doing?

_"What?"_ I open my eyes to stare right into Potter's glasses.

**

_"What?"_ His eyes suddenly snap open.

I flinch and snatch my hand away. _I didn't..._ I didn't expect that. Everything I intended to say evaporates as I stare into his pale eyes. Dark circles around them make Malfoy look ill. His face is so gaunt, why had no one noticed that he’s lost so much weight?

"What, Potter?"

"I..."

"Came here to finish me off?"

"No." My face is burning. "No, I..." I look away. I didn't know it would be so hard to meet his eyes.

"No?" He slowly sits up in the bed.

I lean against the back of the chair and force myself to look at him. The front of his pyjama top gapes open, revealing bandages over his collarbone and shoulder. His chest is bound tight, too, as well as his stomach that I can glimpse where the fabric parts. I flinch and look up, afraid to see the scars, the image of his bleeding face vivid in my mind. There are none, not a single one; his face is as smooth and pale as ever.

"Admiring your work?" He sneers. "I'll show you." His hands reach up to the buttons.

Dread coils in my stomach. "No... _don't_... I... I didn't..."

"You didn't? But you _did..."_

"I'm sorry, Malfoy, I never meant to do that."

He cringes. "Do what?"

"Do... a... _thing_ like that."

"Then _what_ did you mean?"

I shake my head, hell if I know what I meant.

"To humiliate me, hurt me, cause me pain?" he continues. 

"Yes, maybe..." I force out, _"that_ and... other things... maybe... but never _this._ And never to kill you."

"Then why the fuck did you use the spell?"

"I didn't _know_ what it did."

He rolls his eyes. "Of course you didn't."

"It's true, I..."

"I don't _care,_ Potter. I don't care what your purpose was. You did it."

"I wanted to apologise."

"I don't accept your apology. Fuck off." Malfoy winces and slides carefully down to lie on his back.

"Malfoy..."

"Get out, or I'll tell Pomfrey you're disturbing my sleep." He closes his eyes and says no more.

I have nothing left to do but leave.

**

I am sure Potter won't come again. Good riddance. 

I'm sitting on the windowsill, staring at my reflection against the night in the dark, glass surface.

Snape came today. Again. With his talk and his offer.

He'd made a Vow, he said. It had almost killed him when Potter slashed me open in the bathroom. He almost didn't have any time left, he said. If he hadn't found me, we would both be dead.

He insisted that I confided in him with the task the Dark Lord had given me.

"At least I would know what I have to deal with. One misstep, Draco, the tiniest stupidity on your part, and we are both dead."

It still might be a trap. I don’t think I can trust him. What if the Dark Lord himself has set it all up?

I refused. "I didn't _make_ you swear the vow.”

He left.

Sometimes I wonder what it means to be Snape. I don't understand. He is here, he is there, he is everywhere. Always determined, never afraid. What the hell is he even doing? Which master does he serve, if any?

"I serve the cause." He grimaced when I asked him last night. What the hell did he mean? I didn't ask, he wouldn't tell me.

It's cold, and I shift on the windowsill and wince, disturbing my bandages. My wounds have gotten better, but any wrong movement still hurts. I should probably fetch the quilt. I can't summon it from here, Pomfrey took my wand away.

"You don't need it here, Mr. Malfoy, you shouldn't waste your energy until you are healed. Whatever magic you need, you may ask me." 

_Bugger._

Putting my weight on my arms, I slide carefully off the windowsill. _Fuck._ Streaks of pain sting through my chest. What's the point of this exercise, anyway? What harm would there be if I just summoned the thing across the room with my wand? Carefully I limp towards the bed, every step of my right foot tugging at the strings of pain up my abdomen. Well, I'm not sure I'd want to make it the entire way back to the window. I think I'm just going to climb into bed and be done with it.

"Here, Malfoy." He grabs me by the arm, making me yelp. "Lean on me."

**

I expect to find Malfoy in his bed, but no. He is moving across the room. I mean, how long does it take to cross this room from the window to the bed? I've never thought of it, not really. Not long, I suppose. But Malfoy is _moving._

His face set, he limps slowly, favouring his right side, wincing each time his right foot touches the floor. 

_My doing._ How did I even come to that?

In his oversized striped pyjamas, he looks so skinny and frail. He _is_ skinny and frail, I've just never thought of it until now. The bright moonlight from the window makes his hair glow silver. Like a ghost. It's unsettling.

Malfoy stumbles and growls, and I move before I know it.

"Here, Malfoy." I grab his arm. He jerks and whines. _Damn,_ I've probably caused him pain. "Lean on me." 

"Fuck, Potter, get off me!" He wiggles his shoulder to shrug me off and hisses. "I _said_ get off me! You are hurting me."

I drop his arm and step back. "Sorry... I was just... trying to help."

"I don't need your help." He limps to the bed and grips the headboard, carefully angling his body to lower himself down. _"Fuck,"_ he lets out through the gritted teeth as soon as he is finally seated. "What do you want?"

"I just-" I begin.

"No, not _that_ again." Malfoy cringes. "Spare me. Go away."

"Malfoy, I'm so sorry, I..."

"Shut up, Potter. I don't want to know, I _don’t._ I feel shitty as it is. Just leave."

His unwashed hair is a mess, sticking up at one side where he slept on it. His sharp collarbone stands out in the gap of the collar of his pyjama top, the other one is bandaged. He looks underfed, miserable and ill. _In pain_, guilt whispers in my mind.

"No, listen-" I step forward. 

"Potter, I'm sick of you and your apologies. I'm calling Pomfrey." He reaches out to touch a tiny bell on his bedside table.

I grip his wrist, he cringes. 

"Sorry." I drop his hand. "I'm not here to apologise. I wanted to help."

"Snape has helped me just fine. Go away." He rubs at his wrist.

"No... I mean, with that thing that troubles you," I say carefully. "In the bathroom... you told Myrtle that-"

Malfoy's eyes go wide. _"No!_ I won't talk about it. Least of all with you."

"No, listen... I figured you must do something and have failed so far, and I thought-"

"I said _no,_ Potter!" His face is livid. "You can't help me. No one can."

"Dumbledore," I say. "Dumbledore can. He can do _anything."_

"No." Malfoy shakes his head. "No." He lies down and covers his head with a blanket.

"Malfoy..."

_"I said no! _Go away."

**

It's been a week since Pomfrey released me. Good as new.

It seems no one knows what actually happened, or Potter's role in it. It leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. If it were the other way around, no doubt by now the entire school would know that I'd nearly killed their wretched _Hero._

Anyway, fuck him. I hope Potter will at least leave me alone.

"Malfoy." 

No such luck.

I turn towards the sound of his voice. Potter steps out from behind a tree. I turn away, looking over the lake. The fucker has found me _here:_ in the twilight, on the deserted bench by the lake. And just when I’d begun to think he’d stopped stalking me.

He approaches to sit beside me.

I shuffle away. "What do you want?"

"My offer still stands."

"Bugger you and your offer. Do I have to spell it out?"

Without a word, Potter gets up and walks away.

Good.

I turn to the lake. It is already dark. Black skies, black waters. Stars divided between the two. Two moons, shining twice as bright. Beautiful. Lonely.

I'm so lonely.

I want Mother here, want to put my head on her lap and feel safe again. Want to tell her everything, unload this burden and breathe. If she only knew, she would be horrified; she still wouldn't be able to help me. I miss her. I remember Father's face the day he returned from Azkaban. He went there strong and proud and emerged a ruin of a man. Whatever horrors he may have done at the Dark Lord's command, he is my father, and if I fail... I can't fail. I don't have the right.

A sob escapes me, and another one, my eyes prickling hot. My face suddenly damp, I wipe at it with the back of my hand, and my palm, and my fingers, again and again. I press my fingertips into my eyelids until colourful circles bloom before my eyes: yellow and red and orange.

A rustle behind me makes me jump; startled, I turn. Potter. He stuffs something in his pocket. I spring on my feet with my wand drawn. He steps forward and draws his. Slowly, we circle each other, the bench between us.

"What the fuck, Potter? Still spying on me?"

He angles closer.

"Stay where you are, or I'll tear you bloody." Hatred coils hot in my guts.

Why the fuck is he always _there?_ When I'm at my weakest. When I am at my worst. When I am snivelling, cowering, weeping; when I'm beaten, defeated, _a failure._ The moments I want to forget and pretend they never happened, not to _me._ But no. Potter doesn't let me. He always makes sure I won't.

There's this flickering moment of hesitation when, poised to strike, neither of us moves. The air between us is as deadly as it was in that fucking _bathroom,_ just before he drew my blood. Then something shifts in Potter's face, as though a storm passes aside.

"Fuck." He lowers his wand. "What's wrong with us?" Shaking his head, he approaches the bench between us and sits down.

"So much for the apologies." I turn away to face the lake.

"I'm not here to apologise."

"I figured." I sheathe my wand inside my sleeve.

Potter snorts and draws a deep breath and exhales, long and slow. "Would you sit down? We really need to talk."

I look at him over my shoulder, bright moonlight reflecting off his glasses. He sits with his arms crossed. All the fight leaves me, and now I just feel tired. I walk towards him and sit on the bench. 

"Talk."

"I gather you’re fucked, Malfoy," he says. "Utterly fucked."

I stare at him. Is there any chance that he _knows_ what he's talking about?

"I have no idea what it is, but I'm not blind. I've seen enough to figure out that you are trapped, alone, and your time is running out," he continues, staring at the lake. "So I say it again: go to Dumbledore before it's too late and tell him everything. Whatever the fuck it is. He'll help you figure it out. He's the only one who can."

We sit in silence, wheels turning frantically in my head. I am fucked either way, and Potter has no idea what he's talking about.

Potter stands up and walks to the water.

"What does Dumbledore say?" I ask his back.

"Dumbledore?" He looks over his shoulder.

"You said I should go to him for help. What did he say? He sent you, surely he told you of his plans?"

Moonlight blinks on Potter's glasses. "He didn't send me. No one did."

"What? Then why?.."

"No one sent me," he repeats, "I just thought, that..."

_Fuck._

I realise there's no plan, Potter acted on impulse, all this was only his stupid idea, and Dumbledore is none the wiser.

"So Dumbledore doesn't know." Sick to my guts, I stand up. 

No one is going to help me. Neither Potter nor Dumbledore. _No one._ For one brief moment, there was a glimpse of hope, lurking behind Potter's words. But it’s been snuffed out in an instant. Potter didn't know what he was doing. _There was no plan. _

"No, he doesn't," Potter says, "but if we go and tell him, he will help."

I can't go and _tell him._ Tell him that I must kill him, that it’s either that or my parents' death, that I didn't have a choice and I still don't.

"He will not. Believe me, when he hears, he won't."

"Why?"

"He can't help me in this, and he won't want to."

"What is it, Malfoy? What is it that you have to do?"

I shake my head.

"I won't tell anyone."

"No."

"I promise."

"You'll tell Dumbledore, and... _he_ must not know."

"What happens if he does?"

"He... he'll kill my parents." My voice cracks. I walk to the water, past Potter, away and back. I breathe and breathe to ebb away this feeling in my throat, to not let the tears flow. _Shit._ I'm about to break down in front of Potter. _Again._

"Dumbledore?" Potter asks dumbly.

"No, the.... the Dark Lor-" My sob eats the name away. 

Unable to hold it back anymore, I bite my lip and turn away to hide my crumpling face from Potter. I begin walking along the water, quickly picking up pace. Only when I think the distance between us is safe enough do I dare to wipe my eyes.

_Thump, thump, thump, thump,_ the heavy splash of Potter's feet against the sand eats up the distance in no time.

"Malfoy, tell me! _What is it?!"_ He grabs my elbow, breathing heavily from the run. "We'll sort it out."

"No!" I shout in his face. "If I tell you, _you'll _kill me. You probably should have - in the bathroom - and been done with it!" I shrug his hand off and start to walk away, my vision blurry.

Potter catches up with me and grabs my wrist, turning me to face him. When I try to wrench free, he grabs my other wrist. 

"Let go! _Let go!"_ I shriek, trying to kick him in the shin. My voice is shrill, and I fail to control my face, to make it appear normal. I despise myself, but I can't stop, can't hold it back anymore. I sag to my knees, dragging him down with me, and howl.

"Okay, Malfoy... okay... okay, Malfoy," Potter repeats over and over, his face bewildered.

He's freaking out, he has no idea how to deal with me; I don't know how to deal with myself either.

He doesn't let go.

Eventually, my tears stop, exhaustion washing over me. Only then do I realise that he is squeezing my wrists so hard that I can't stand it.

"Let go," I mumble. "It hurts."

He releases me. "Sorry."

I sit back on my heels. "Fuck."

Potter says nothing. I reach down and cup some water in my palms to wash my face. And again. A stray hiccup or sob jerks me now and then. I scramble to my feet and Potter follows. Water slurps in my boots.

"Leave me alone, Potter," I say weakly, watching as he brushes wet sand off his trousers.

"No. Whatever it is, Malfoy, we are going to Dumbledore. Now," Potter says wearily and adjusts his glasses.

_Fuck it,_ I think, _it can’t possibly get worse._

"Alright, damn you," I say, and follow him up the hill.

I'm done struggling. 

I'm done.

"Wait," Potter says as we approach the castle. 

We stop, and he reaches into the front pocket of his trousers, retrieving a small piece of cloth. He unfolds it, and unfolds it, and unfolds it until the liquid fabric slithers through his fingers in rich transparent folds.

"What's this?" I ask, though I think I already know. There were rumours, and once I witnessed it myself in the third year, though I didn't know what I was seeing.

"Invisibility Cloak," Potter says, and steps closer. 

I'm a bit taller than he, an inch maybe, so I have to bend my head down as he covers us both.

"Keep close," he says, and links his arm through mine. 

We head up the steps to the front door.

**

I try to eavesdrop by the door, but can't make out any sound. They have been at it for about an hour now.

When I led Malfoy in, Dumbledore greeted us and said: "Do kindly wait in the outer room, Harry. Make yourself at home. I want a word with you later."

I knew dismissal when I heard it.

I try not to get offended. I try. 

I assumed that Dumbledore would surely include me in Malfoy's secret since it was my idea in the first place. I thought he'd ask my opinion, and even allow me to help. It's Malfoy, and it's not like I'm eager to get into trouble on his behalf, but... well... I nearly killed him, I have to make amends.

Malfoy finally emerges, very pale in the face. He looks through me as though I'm not here and walks out.

"Harry," Dumbledore calls, "do come in."

"It was a good decision on your part to persuade Draco to come to me with his worries," he begins as soon as I am seated. "It shows that you are wise and have your heart in the right place, I never doubted that."

"Thank you, sir."

"You are most welcome. However..." Dumbledore reaches into the bowl of sweets in front of him. "There is something I have to ask of you." He arranges bright candies in a circle with his left hand; his right one lies on the desk - black, dead and useless. Looking at it, I try not to cringe.

"I've given Draco an important task to fulfil; a crucial task which everything depends on. Harry, I want you to-" He looks up.

I don't let him finish. "You want me to help him, I know-"

Dumbledore sighs. "Hear me out, Harry."

"Sorry, sir."

"Following my orders, Draco is doing an important task in the Room of Requirement. I want you to leave him alone and not try to find out what that task is. You must not interfere. You mustn’t. It is essential."

Whatever I might have expected, it wasn't this. "You don't trust me, sir."

"I trust you with my life, my boy." Dumbledore's voice is as soft as ever, but his eyes are piercing - the sharpest, clearest blue. "It is not a matter of trust, but your safety. To protect you from each other I must divide you."

"From each other?" 

"Yes, so that neither of you would be able to expose the other." Dumbledore stands up and walks to the window. "And there's another thing you should know, Harry." With his back to me, he looks into the darkness outside.

Something coils in my stomach. I don't like it. I don't think I want to know what he's about to say next.

"I am aware of the unfortunate bathroom incident between you and Draco."

_Fuck. Here we go. _

"Professor Snape has told me about it in detail."

_No doubt he has._

"I will not berate you, my boy, for I am sure the burden of guilt you carry weighs heavily upon you even without my rebuke."

I stare at my hands in my lap, at the white scar across the back of my left hand: _'I must not tell lies’ _ thin, faded letters. I must not. So I say nothing.

"However, your mere presence here shows your effort and willingness to right the wrongs you did to Draco."

"I hope it has made a difference, sir," I say, my face burning. "He didn't accept my apologies, but he accepted help, in the end."

"It has made all the difference in the world, my boy." He turns to face me. "However, there is more to it."

I still don't like this feeling in the pit of my stomach. I still don't.

"It so happens that when you wounded Draco with the Sectumsempra curse, a bond formed between the two of you. A bond of a special nature that binds you to protect him, should he be in mortal peril again. The bond can only be undone by a protective spell, one of equal power to the Sectumsempra curse you cast on Draco."

My insides turn to lead. "I must save his life if need be?"

"Yes."

"And if I fail?"

"You die." His voice is gentle.

I stare at him.

"Which absolutely _must not_ happen, Harry. Do you understand?"

"Yes," I say dumbly.

"You must make sure that no harm befalls Draco."

I nod. _Holy shit._ That means I have to keep an eye on Malfoy from now on, lest he gets harmed in my absence. I feel ill, and my face probably betrays me, because Dumbledore sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose with his good hand.

"Harry, I am aware that you are not happy about it, but you _do_ understand that we should take responsibility for our actions, even unintentional ones. Forgive me, I am not able to release you from this bond. It dissolves as soon as you fulfill your debt. _If_ you fulfill it."

"And if the situation never comes?" I ask, liking it less and less.

"Then the debt stands until it does."

I nod, drawing circles in the carved surface of the wooden desk.

"It is late, my boy, time for you to go back to your dormitory."

I stand up. "Goodnight, sir." Reaching the door, I turn. "Sir? Should I let Malfoy know?"

"It is for you to decide."

**

The corridors are deserted during lunchtime. I meet no one on my way to the Room of Requirement.

For once, Potter has stopped stalking me. Probably Dumbledore told him to. He used to lurk in the background every time I set foot outside the Great Hall or classes. No doubt he imagined himself a master of stealth and me being none the wiser. Idiot. A drunken bear is subtler than Potter creeping behind me along the corridors.

But now he’s left me alone, I'm sure.

I reach the blank wall on the seventh floor and stop, glancing around. No one. I close my eyes and concentrate, picturing the place I need to reach. Walking past the wall three times, back and forth, I say the words in my head:

_'I need to get to the room of hidden things.'_

Three times. 

I open my eyes.

The familiar door appears in the wall and lets me inside, dissolving instantly, blending back into the wall.

I walk past the row of old furniture and turn to the right, past the pile of cauldrons and a broom closet and a skeleton of some big animal, probably a bear on its hind legs. One turn to the right again, and here it is: tall and narrow, dark wooden doors carved with their intricate pattern.

“The Vanishing cabinet must be destroyed now?" I asked Dumbledore a week ago. That night when Potter dragged me to him and everything changed.

"No, my boy. From now on, you should try and do your best to make it work. It is essential that you succeed."

In shock, I gaped at him like a fish. "Sir?"

"Voldemort gave you the task. Your failure would be a threat to your parents' lives."

I flinched at the Dark Lord's name that he said so easily, as though it were nothing, as though it were the same to him as saying _'Draco Malfoy'_ or _'Mrs. Norris.’_ I wished he'd rather not do it.

"But how can I succeed if that means-”

"You need to let Death Eaters inside Hogwarts, as is required of you, and leave the rest to me," he said.

I didn't know what that meant, not really. The only thing that was clear to me was that it was not the kind of _'help'_ I expected. The fool that I am, surrendering to Dumbledore’s mercy, I was sure it would be different. I thought that he’d hide me somewhere and find a way to sneak my parents out of the Dark Lord’s clutches. I thought he would say that I needn't worry anymore; I thought he would take my burdens away. I thought he would relieve me from the Dark Lord’s task. I thought it would be different, I thought it would be the end - of my fears, worries, danger. Little did I know, it was only the beginning. I went to him for help, but instead, he gave me another task that was different and the same as the Dark Lord’s.

Trapped between the hammer and the anvil, I have no choice: either side I am on - light or dark - I am bound to let evil in.

I open the narrow double door and peer into the cabinet. Nothing. Empty. I retrieve a walnut from my pocket and carefully place it in the middle of the empty shelf and concentrate.

“_Harmonia Nectere Passus,”_ _[1]_ I say, and close the door.

**

We Apparate to the top of the Astronomy Tower. Dumbledore stumbles forward. He would have fallen if I didn't catch him by the arm.

"Thank you, Harry."

"Are you all right, sir?" My voice comes out shrill. I am so shaken with _what _I saw in that cave, I know Dumbledore is definitely _not_ all right. "We should go to Madam Pomfrey, or I can bring her-"

"We don't have time, Harry. Quickly, I need your Cloak."

I don't understand what he has in mind, but I don't question his request. I've long ceased to question Dumbledore's actions, really; I just do as he says. I retrieve the Cloak out of the pocket of my jeans. "Here, sir."

"Thank you." He folds the Cloak over his stiff right arm and... points his wand at me.

With a silent flash of white, he sends me into the corner behind the pillar, and my back hits the wall. Pain explodes in my head where I smash it against the stone, warmth trickles down my neck. Blood. I cry out. No, I would - if I could. But I can't. My voice is stuck in my throat; in a panic, I choke on my tongue. His Full Body Bind is a cruel thing. I am unable to move, I am a wooden slab - a stiff useless thing - even my heart feels frozen. My mind screams, shock finally giving in to bewilderment, hurt, anger, outrage. Too late. It took him a mere second, and I never saw it coming.

Dumbledore spreads out the Invisibility Cloak and drapes it over me, covering my stiff form from head to toe.

"Forgive me, Harry." He steps back and leans against the railings. His breath is laboured. He looks so old and frail _\- harmless -_ his deceptive appearance at odds with what he is capable of. 

I wrench against my bonds. At least I think that I do... or would have done if I could. I can't even blink. 

"Now, listen to me carefully. Death Eaters are about to be here any minute, and _Draco_ will be the one leading them. Whatever happens, Harry, you _must_ remember: he is performing my task; he is doing what I commanded him to. _Whatever_ happens, Harry, do you understand? You must promise me to protect him in the end. You will Ennervate him, get him out of here and hide him. It is my wish, Harry, and my command."

I have no idea what he is talking about, it hardly makes any sense; it sounds wrong, and I don't have a chance to ask him. I want to shout, demanding to lift this fucking spell so that I can finally breathe and... I try, but... I try and try and try...

"Expelliarmus!" 

Dumbledore's wand flies out of his grip and clatters against the floor.

"Do it, Draco," a voice says. _Oh-so-familiar,_ insane, cold, dreadful voice. I'd recognise it anywhere.

I don't see the woman, but no doubt she is here. I can see nothing but Dumbledore against the railings right in front of me. All I can do is stare ahead.

Malfoy steps in front of Dumbledore, holding him at the wand point.

"Good evening, Bella," Dumbledore says mildly. "What a pleasure to see you."

"Old man..." Bellatrix Lestrange is behind Malfoy. "The old man has lived too long. Do it, boy. You have to _mean it."_ She caresses Malfoy's nape with her fingers and takes half a step back.

The wand in Malfoy's hand shakes in the dim light of the lanterns on the walls. It's not the wand, I realise, it's Malfoy. He is shaking with horror written across his face.

"Dumbledore..." His voice is barely a whisper, and he must be grateful that Bellatrix doesn't see his face.

"Do it and be done with him," someone grumbles, "or I'll do it."

Malfoy doesn't move.

"Fenrir," Dumbledore says and raises his left hand in greeting.

A silent flash of green light erupts from his palm and sends Malfoy reeling. He hits the floor and stills, motionless, his hand still gripping his wand. From here I see his eyes - huge in shock - staring at the ceiling.

_No._ This cannot be happening. Dumbledore would _never..._ My mind reels. Everything is wrong, false as a terror of a nightmare.

"You've killed the boy," Bellatrix says. There is no fear or regret in her voice. Only wonder.

"He would have killed me," Dumbledore shifts against the railings.

_No. You would have never done that._

"But a _wandless_ Avada Kedavra?" Carefully, Bellatrix steps around Malfoy's body to take a closer look, all the time holding Dumbledore at wand point.

"This old man is old," Dumbledore says, "and full of surprises."

Moonlight makes his face look a pale-grey mask, old and weathered, _dead._ Terror spreads in my guts. I understand nothing anymore.

"The old man has lived long enough." Bellatrix turns her head to look at him, her poise never wavers. Her wrist twists in a tiny movement for a better grip.

_No! No!_ I thrash and scream. I try.

"No," a voice repeats after me. Deep and dark and familiar.

I would sag in relief to the floor if my body would obey me.

_Snape._

Never in my life have I been so glad to see him.

_Snape is here_ and everything is going to be alright. Snape is here to fix it.

Bellatrix turns. "Severusss..."

Now I see him: a tall dark shape steps out of the shadows and with a sudden movement shoves Bellatrix aside.

"You killed the boy?" His voice is blank. He doesn't look at Malfoy's prone form on the floor.

"Severus," Dumbledore says - soft and gentle, _pleading_ \- "Severus, _please."[2]_

Snape raises his wand.

_Now._ He will strike that insane bitch Bellatrix, and the Werewolf, and all the Death Eater scum that have wormed their way into Hogwarts. He will defend Dumbledore, he will save him and call for help and...

_"Avada Kedavra."_

What did he say?

In a flash of green light, Dumbledore reels back, his hands thrown wide as he grasps the air for support, falls over the railings and is gone.

Silence falls.

My thoughts slow, thick like jelly, I stare at the spot where he stood mere moments ago. No, no. It's a mistake, someone's stupid mistake. It cannot be happening, not to Dumbledore, never to him.

"Hurry!" Snape's voice breaks the silence. "Out of here." He moves out of the line of my vision, Bellatrix following. 

There is shuffling of feet against the floor, the scrape of the heavy door on its hinges, urgent footsteps scattering over the staircase, dying down in the distance, until the door slams shut, its echo fading into a ringing silence, leaving me alone in the small stone room at the top of the tower. Me and dead Malfoy.

I wrench against my binds and stumble forward, stepping on the hem of the Cloak, because the binds are no longer there. I fall forward, landing painfully on my outstretched palms. I curse and tug the Cloak off and scramble on my knees, shuffling across the floor to Malfoy.

No, no, it _was his plan._ What else could it possibly be? Dumbledore wouldn't die. He didn't die. Not like this. His clever plan - that's what it was. He has fooled them all, he didn't die, he didn't fall, Fawkes has saved him in the air and carried him away. It was his plan, he told me.

_What plan?! What plan?! _My mind races.

I don't know, he never told me, but I am sure it was his plan all along. What else?

I look down at Malfoy's dead wide eyes staring at the ceiling; at his face frozen in surprise; at his wand, still pointing up.

I touch his hand and flinch. It is stiff and icy cold. I press my fingertips to the base of his neck, where I think a pulse point must be.

Nothing.

Or I probably just can't find it, because I don't know how to check a pulse.

_No._

It's a trick.

_'...Ennervate him...'_

It's a trick.

_'...get him out of here...'_

He's not dead.

_'...hide him...'_

Malfoy is alive... and _so is Dumbledore._

_'...it is my wish, Harry, and my command...'_

I know he's alive. All I have to do is find him.

I spring to my feet. 

_'... you must promise me to protect him...'_

I look down at Malfoy. I did, I promised. Did I have a choice? There's no time for that right now. I bend over Malfoy and grab his ankles. Though skinny, the bastard is heavy as fuck, and I barely manage to move him at first. My hands are shaking. 

"Fuck, Malfoy," I grunt, dragging him into the corner behind the pillar, the very one Dumbledore threw me into. "You could get up and walk on your own, save me the trouble."

Staring at the ceiling, Malfoy doesn't reply. His head bumps over the uneven flagstones. Finally, I drop him in the corner and pause to catch my breath. I'm so thirsty; my tongue tastes of smoke and dust.

"I'll be right back," I tell Malfoy. I don't know whether he hears me. 

I pluck the wand out of his grip and tuck it into the waistband of his trousers, covering him with the Invisibility Cloak. My boot bumps against something that clatters over the floor. Dumbledore's wand. I pick it up and dash to the door.

The stench of smoke hits me on the staircase.

_Down, down_

The echo of screams and firing curses roll along the deserted corridors.

_Hurry_

A loud crash from the landing beneath.

_Almost there_

Scattered footsteps, a heavy _bang!_ of the great double doors.

The entrance hall is covered in debris, stone shards everywhere, gaps in the walls where the paintings have been. There's no one here. I run outside, catching up with people hurrying along the castle wall.

_Around, around_

Past the greenhouses, past the back porch opening on the path to the Quidditch pitch.

Bushes flash past in a blur as I speed up.

_There_

At the foot of the Astronomy Tower.

He must be there, among the people, he must be warning them about the Death Eaters’ attack. There - in the middle of the crowd - I'll find him. He is telling students not to be afraid, he is giving orders - to McGonnagal and Flitwick and Snape.

_No_

_No Snape_

_No Snape_

I approach, pushing through the wall of backs that conceals him from me.

I must tell him. I must tell him that Snape is a traitor. He should know, he should never trust him again. 

I feel faint, I feel funny, what's the matter with me?

Someone sobs - to my right and left. Everywhere. 

_Where is Dumbledore?_

Tall and straight as a spear, McGonagall is right in front of me. I stare at her messy bun of grey hair, loose strands falling in disarray over her back. I have never seen her so untidy, what-...

She turns.

Her dirty face is streaked with tears, twisted in a silent grimace of grief.

_"Harry."_

She sounds wrong.

I shake my head. Whatever she is about to say - I don't want to know. _I don’t._

Where is?...

_Where is?..._

McGonagall steps aside, revealing a patch of grass and _something_ lying there. Something wrapped in cloth, and...

_"Where’s Dumbledore?!"_

There's no reply.

I take a step forward to take a closer look. 

It looks like a ragdoll... and something broken... and...

I kneel.

The world crashes down on my head.

"It's his plan... it's his plan," I repeat over and over, "it's his plan." Until my voice drowns in tears that choke me.

Later, much, much later, I realise that I am still clutching his wand.

I put it on his chest. "Your wand, sir."

In the night skies above, a phoenix sings.

**

I try to raise my head and growl when it falls back and hits the stone floor. Sharp pain makes sparkles bloom before my eyes.

It's dark, and I am sprawled on the floor. I don't know where I am or how I got here. The last thing I remember...

A figure moves over me, moonlight glinting off glasses.

_What?..._

"Potter?"

He looms, his face in the shadows, but I know it's Potter.

"Get up," he says, and when I don't move, he bends down and yanks at my arm. "Come _on,_ Malfoy, get up."

He is rude and makes me grunt in pain. "Get _the fuck_ up." There's something in his voice - blank and hollow - something that isn't Potter.

I sit up and then slowly get to my feet. My mind is hazy, and the queasiness makes me prop my hand against the wall for support.

"What happened?" I finally realise that we are on the balcony of the Astronomy Tower.

"Where's Dumbledore?"

"Dead."

I hear the word, but I don't understand what he means. It doesn't make any sense. 

"No."

"Yes." Potter turns away. "We have to get out of here." His voice sounds... not like his voice. There's nothing in it. _Blank._

"But... how?..."

It's some wicked mistake, this can't be true. Dumbledore can't die, he couldn't. He wasn't supposed to die after I told him everything. My plan should have worked out, except he wasn't supposed to die. So he told me. 

"Shut up and follow me." Potter bends down to rummage on the floor and straightens up again, holding something in his hands.

Panic grips me.

"I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what's going on!" My voice echoes around the hollow room.

Potter slaps me, hard. I can't believe it. My ear rings and my cheek burns. 

_"Shut up!_ Unless you want to get yourself killed." He throws his cloak over me. "You'll ask your questions later." He grabs my wrist, tugging me along.

"Where are we going?" I whisper, following him down the stairs. Better do as he says.

"The Room of Requirement," he whispers back. "You must not be seen."

I follow him in silence along the dark corridors, the sound of our feet on stone stark for the world to hear. When we finally enter the Room and the door blends into the wall, Potter turns to me and wrenches the Cloak off.

"Dumbledore's dead. Snape killed him," he says curtly, folding the Cloak many times until it is no larger than a handkerchief; he stuffs it in his pocket.

_Snape?_

I gape at him, feeling strangely calm.

"He knocked you out and made it appear as though you were dead," Potter continues. 

He drops into the armchair, and only then do I realise that the Room has taken the appearance of a cosy single bedroom with a narrow bed, an armchair, and a bedside table. There is even a little door on the back wall, very much like a bathroom door. A window on the wall shows a moonlit lawn and a grove in the distance. An illusion no doubt, as we are deep within the castle.

"Snape?" I blurt.

"Dumbledore." Potter studies his hands. "Before... Snape came in and killed him. He made me promise that I would protect you after... after his death. Bring you to safety, and..." He exhales shakily.

"You _knew_ he would die?" I say dumbly. I am still standing by the door - by the wall where the door should be. Suddenly tired, I approach the bed and sit down.

"No, I didn't..." Potter takes his glasses off and pinches the bridge of his nose. "Just before you came in with the Death Eaters, Dumbledore cast a Full-Body Bind on me and covered me with my Cloak. He told me that you were acting on his orders, and he made me promise to protect you. _'In the end,'_ \- he meant... I don't know... Now, when I think of it, it sounded as though he knew he was going to die," Potter whispers miserably. "So it was his wish - his last wish - that I’d get you out of there. I... told them that you were killed on the Astronomy Tower, and the Death Eaters took your body when they fled. So I-"

Potter doesn't finish; with a sudden strangled cry, he falls off the armchair.

"Potter?!" I kneel beside him. "Potter, _what?!"_

With a cry, he presses his fingers into his scar and throws his head back against the floor.

"Potter?!"

Wide-eyed, he stares right through me and hisses: _"Luciussss..."_

**

"Lucius, come." I beckon at the kneeling man, his blond hair tied at his nape with a black ribbon. "Rise, my friend, and be pardoned."

His eyes still lowered, Lucius rises to his feet with a bow. He does know the art of kneeling and bowing before his Master well, I have to give him that.

"Young Draco has done well and proven himself to be most loyal. Alas! The boy has died tonight, and nothing can bring him back." I raise my voice, surveying the semi-circle of people before me. "But I'll have you know that Draco Malfoy did not die in vain! He died fulfilling his task. The task of the utmost secrecy and importance I gave him. And is there a more honourable way to die than serving your Master until the very end, I ask you?" I pause, waiting for their reply.

"There isn't!" Bellatrix in the front row ardently presses her hands to her chest.

"You are right, Bella," I agree, "there isn't. Pray that everyone would be as willing to meet their death as young Draco. Lucius, I posthumously reward your son with the honour of being called my most faithful servant. You owe your pardon to him, remember that."

"I shall never forget, My Lord." Lucius bows even lower.

"You are dismissed," I say, and the man retreats to take his place in the semi-circle.

There's a dull sound of something hitting the floor and the crowd parts around Lucius.

"What is it?" I ask.

"Forgive me, my Lord, my wife is unwell," Lucius says, and I see a prone form on the floor. 

"Is she in good health?" I frown.

"I am afraid not, my Lord. She fainted. She is unable to stand upright due to the fever. I beg your leave to deliver her to her chambers."

"Please do." I wave my hand at him. "Do take the utmost care of your wife until she is recovered and give Narcissa my best regards once she comes to her senses."

"Thank you, My Lord."

Still not looking up, Lucius snaps his fingers, and an elf appears in front of him. He gestures at his wife, and the three of them disappear from the hall.

"Very well." I clap my hands. "Now, Severus Snape. Come forward."

All in black as always, Severus steps out of the crowd and bows. "My Lord."

"Come, Severus." I beckon. "Come to your Master and be rewarded." I rise from the high chair and step down off the dais. 

Severus approaches. Neither too slow nor too fast. He holds my gaze, moving at just the right pace. He doesn't cower, but he is never arrogant either. The perfect balance of power and obedience. Everything is measured. I even like it about the man.

"Welcome, my friend." I spread my arms wide as though for a hug. 

Severus, however, knows better than to step into my arms. He stops a few paces away and bows low. "My Lord."

Perfect. I survey him for a moment. Now, isn't it a perfect servant that never gets on my nerves?

I clasp my hands in front of me. "Rise, my friend." 

He does.

"Friends!" I address the crowd. "Today is a day of the utmost significance. The turning point of my rise and my enemies' downfall. Severus Snape has made it so. He slew Albus Dumbledore with his own hand." I begin to clap.

Instantly, applause explodes around the room.

His hands clasped behind his back, Severus looks straight ahead, a hint of a smile playing on his lips. Everyone is cheering, beaming at him. Everyone but Bellatrix. Her head bowed, she is standing motionless with her hands at her sides.

Now, this is interesting.

"Silence!" I wave my hand at them.

Instantly silence falls. Bellatrix looks up.

"You may speak, Bella." I gesture to her to come forward.

"My Lord." She kneels. "Forgive me, but let me voice my doubts."

"Doubts?" I frown. "Whom do you doubt?"

"Snape." She looks up, her black eyes gleaming.

"And what about him do you doubt?" I glance at Severus, whose face remains as calm as ever.

"His loyalty and devotion, My Lord."

Bella has always been suspicious. Of everyone and everything. She's recently grown jealous of Severus and the role I gave him, jealous of the place he's earned by my side. However, it won't do to dismiss even the tiniest thing. 

"Rise and speak," I say.

She rises on her feet. "Severus Snape secretly made an Unbreakable Vow. He promised help and protection to Draco, lest he failed in the task you gave him, My Lord."

"Unbreakable Vow? To whom did he vow all that?"

"To my sister Narcissa Malfoy, My Lord."

"Is that true?" I turn to Severus. 

"Yes, My Lord." He meets my eyes without even a hint of fear.

"Why, pray, I was never aware of that?"

"I beg your forgiveness, My Lord, but I took the liberty of agreeing to Narcissa's plea since either outcome would play to your benefit." 

"And how is that?" I watch him closely. He doesn't fidget, doesn't show any sign of fear. 

"Draco worked hard, there were high chances of him succeeding without my help. But should he have failed, the Vow would urge me to accomplish his task, hence your plan would prevail either way." Severus bows.

"Very clever," I agree. "But if _you_ failed, Severus?" 

"Then I would die."

_"But you didn’t die!"_ Bella snarls. "Draco is dead, and you are not. How is that?"

I turn to Severus. "True. How is that?"

"Where's the lie, Snape?" Bellatrix pokes him in the chest. "You can't break an Unbreakable Vow."

"I did," Severus says.

"Where's the trick?" Bella's eyes narrow as she fiddles with her wand.

"There's no trick." He looks me in the eyes, paying her no attention. "Only my will and my desire to serve My Lord."

"And how does your breaking the Vow that you swore to my sister serve our Lord?" The tip of Bella's wand presses under Severus' chin. He doesn't even flinch. Calm as a brick wall.

I should punish her for speaking ahead of me, but I find their banter far too amusing. Besides, Bella's jealousy is funny and her attempts to prove Severus' words false and win my favour over him entertain me to no end. He is not deceiving me, I've checked myself many times. Clean. But let Bella make an effort.

"What use would that be if I died with the boy? Draco died, and I completed his task as I swore to his mother. I broke the Vow and returned to your side, My Lord."

"My Lord, he is lying. He deceived Narcissa, and now he is deceiving you."

Severus grabs the tip of the wand pressing into his throat, wrenches it out of Bella's grip, and throws it on the floor. The wand clatters, rolling over the marble, and with a shriek, Bella dives after it.

"My Lord!" She scrambles on her feet, outraged. "Let me-"

_"Silence,"_ I cut her off.

"Severus." I turn to him. "Look at me."

He obeys. 

_I dive._

His mind welcomes me, embraces me and rocks like the deepest waters of the dark ocean. He is well-trained and knows better than to resist. He lays everything bare, ripe for the taking.

I see the Unbreakable Vow, him hand-bound to Narcissa with the red string, Bella performing the ritual.

I see Dumbledore silently killing the boy in a green flash of light.

I see Severus casts Avada Kedavra, and the old man topples over the railings.

"Out of here!" Severus urges the group of Death Eaters.

With one last glance at Draco's body, he is gone.

I pull back in a rush. Severus flinches. I know his head hurts.

"Well, well... not as unbreakable as it seems.” I smile. “I am most pleased."

Severus bows. "My Lord."

His eyes turn grey, his hair blond, his face a mix of bewilderment and grave concern.

I realise I am lying on my back, staring at the ceiling, and Malfoy looms over me.

"Potter? Can you see me?" He waves his hand in front of my face.

No, Malfoy's dead. Dumbledore killed him, I saw it in Snape's mind, I...

"Potter?"

No, I didn't... It was not I who saw it, it was...

"Voldemort," I say, sitting up.

Malfoy flinches.

"Voldemort, he..."

"Don't say his name!"

"I saw him... I mean, through his eyes that... I saw Snape and..." My scar burns viciously, it is all I can do not to cry.

"Through _his eyes?!_ What are you saying, Potter?"

"I was him, Vol..."

"Don't!" Malfoy yelps, shuffling on his knees backwards.

"In my vision I was _him._ He pardoned your father; he said you succeeded in your task. He thinks you are dead, he thinks Dumbledore killed you."

Malfoy stares at me in horror. "How?.."

"I don't know, sometimes I see what's happening to Vo... to _him_ through his eyes."

"My mother," Malfoy whispers. "Is she alive?"

"Yes, I saw her, she's alive. She's well," I lie. 

I can't, I don't want to explain that she fainted when I... when Voldemort said Malfoy was dead.

"But she thinks you are dead," I continue, slowly getting on all fours and then on my feet. The world tilts, and I catch myself on the armchair. 

Bewildered, Malfoy stares at me, kneeling on the floor.

"They all do, _he_ _– You-Know-Who-"_ I feel stupid, saying the nickname, "he told them you died performing the task he gave you. That's why your parents were pardoned. So it's better if your mother thinks so. You are both safe, as long as they think you are dead." 

I drop into the armchair, watching Malfoy sitting back on his heels on the floor. His face lowered, he blinks as though trying to ebb the tears away.

"Yes, you are right. It's better if she thinks I'm dead." He wipes his eyes with his palm.

With his dirty face and hair, in stained clothes and kneeling on the floor, he looks so miserable, that I suddenly realise I feel sorry for him and his mother. Can't bring myself to care for Lucius, though.

"Malfoy?" 

He looks up.

"Dumbledore told me you were acting on his orders, performing the task he gave you. What task?" 

Getting to his feet, Malfoy exhales shakily. He drags himself to the bed and collapses on his back.

"To let Death Eaters into Hogwarts," he says, staring at the ceiling.

"What?" I think I've misheard.

“To let Death Eaters into Hogwarts," he repeats.

"_Dumbledore?"_ I ask dumbly.

"Dumbledore," Malfoy agrees.

"And what task did you have to perform for You-Know-Who? He said you succeeded."

"To let Death Eaters into Hogwarts."

I say nothing, I understand nothing anymore.

"To let them into Hogwarts." Malfoy hesitates. "And..."

"And?"

"Kill Dumbledore."

**

When I enter the Room of Requirement, I see Malfoy curled on the bed with his back to me.

I approach and put the paper bag I've brought on the bedside table. He doesn't pay any attention.

"Here's some cheese and scones, apples, water," I say automatically. 

I've brought him food because people must eat to stay alive, even if they are Malfoy, I reckon. But I don't really care if he eats it or not, if he lives or dies... except that I do. If he dies, I die, as long as my debt stands.

And maybe the idea is not that bad? To crawl into bed and close my eyes - I want nothing more right now, really - stop eating, stop talking, stop _anything,_ and eventually cease to exist.

With a quiet sob and a sigh, Malfoy turns on his side to face me. "Thank you."

I drop into the armchair. "What am I going to do with you now?"

Malfoy doesn't reply. Sullen and puffy-eyed, he just looks at me. He's been crying a lot, I think dully. I recently cried a lot, too.

"Dumbledore told me to hide you, once he... once he was dead, that's what he meant, I think... he knew they were going to kill him." I wipe my eyes and force the lump in my throat down.

Malfoy sits up in the bed.

"What did he tell you? What were you going to do once you let them in?" I ask.

"He said, I only had to let them in and lead them to him, and he'd take care of the rest." His face is devoid of expression.

"But how did you let them in?"

"The Vanishing Cabinet in the Room of Requirement. I fixed it. The other one is in _'Borgin & Burkes'._ The link between the two connects the one to the other." Malfoy stares down at his hands, spreading out the duvet on his lap.

"So that's what you were doing there." I'm so tired, so very tired. 

"He said, as soon as I make sure it worked properly, I should let him know and wait for his command. Here." Malfoy reaches into the front pocket of his shirt, retrieving a coin - an ordinary gold galleon. "I touched it with a spell, and it grew hot, and so did the one he kept so that he'd know I was ready. I had to go to the Room of Requirement and wait for his command. Yesterday morning, I sent him a message and waited. The coin grew hot only in the evening, so I went to _'Borgin & Burkes'_ and summoned..._them_ and..." He shakes his head, his voice barely a whisper. "Led them here. He told me, he'd be waiting at the top of the Astronomy Tower, so we... went right there. And there he was - alone. I thought he'd call the Aurors. Nothing went as planned." Malfoy covers his eyes. "He talked wrong, and never tried to fight, and there was Aunt Bella... I didn't know what to do. Then he knocked me out with a spell, and..." He shrugs.

"Snape killed him," I finish for him, feeling nothing, nothing at all, only numbness. 

"I have to go." I stand up. "I'll be back in a few days, I think. You must not leave the room. I told them that the Death Eaters took your body when they fled. So everyone here thinks you are dead, too." 

"But... Potter... What am I going to do?" Malfoy asks in a panic.

"I don't know." I shrug. I really have no idea. I don’t think I care. "But I promised Dumbledore to help you, so... I must figure something out. Until then, you'd better stay here." I head to the door.

"Potter!"

Not looking at him, I shake my head and take the door handle. "Dobby!"

The elf appears with a pop. "Harry Potter! My friend!" He squeaks, taking off his ridiculous hat in greeting.

"Hello, Dobby." I try a smile. "May I ask you a favour?"

"Of course, Harry Potter!"

"Can you please take care of Malfoy here in my absence?" I gesture at the bed where Malfoy is gaping at us. "I mean... bring him food, and all... he may need." Hell if I know what Malfoy needs, it's not that I care, but I promised Dumbledore. "He must not leave this room until my return. I'll be back in a few days, I think. I have a... lot to do." I want to crawl into bed, take a Dreamless Sleep potion and sleep for ages, and forget this entire nightmare as if it never happened. I plan to do just that - the sleeping part.

"Yes. Dobby is happy to help his friend Harry Potter!"

"Thank you, Dobby." I press the handle when a sudden thought strikes me. Dobby is a free elf, after all, and can do as he pleases, so nothing really prevents him from... _Shit._

"And please, Dobby, _please,_ don't do him any harm. Remember, Dumbledore forbade it; it was his last wish."

"Yes, Harry Potter. Dobby understand. Dobby remember."

This is all I can hope for now. "Thank you."

I leave without looking at Malfoy.

I should go back to my dorm and lie the fuck down because the pain in my scar is splitting my head in two. Instead, my feet carry me to the Astronomy Tower. I emerge at the top into the small empty room, the place where everything had turned into _'before'_ and _'after'_ mere hours ago. Breathing heavily after the climb, I lean against the railing and look down. I suddenly realise that I stand at the very spot where Dumbledore stood, touch the stone where he laid his hand, look down at the ground where he fell. There's nothing and no one there now. They carried the body away, I don't know where. Probably to his private chambers. It's still dark, but the dawn begins to gnaw at the black line of the Forbidden Forest. The world is still and silent. Empty. As empty as I am.

I don't know what to do now. Dumbledore has left me so many things to accomplish and figure out. But now I see no point. Without him, there is no way I will succeed. Without his command and guidance, without his wisdom and support. He always told me what to do, he was always _there... _

I always did as he told me, always trusted him without question.

And now...

I am lost.

Blind 

Ignorant

Fumbling helplessly in the dark

Scared

Alone

I sob and bend my face down over the void, feeling hot tears cooling on my skin in the morning breeze. When the sky turns white over the black forest, I finally step back and wipe my face. I really need to lie down.

A glimpse of something on the floor right next to my boot catches my eye, and I squat down to have a better look. A coin - an ordinary golden galleon. Very much like the one Malfoy showed me. I pick it up, put it in my pocket and finally head down the stairs.

**

"Guys, there's something I have to tell you," I say on our way back from Dumbledore's tomb.

The funeral crowd recedes, groups of people moving to the gates.

I see Ginny's bright hair far ahead. We've talked with her and said our farewells. I'm leaving Hogwarts, and she's not coming with me. My chest tight, I breathe deeply, trying to school my face into calm. My eyes are about to betray me. Ron looks away. 

No one would judge me now if I broke down and wept in front of them all. They would think my tears were for Dumbledore. But no. Since that dreadful night, I don't have any tears left for him. I shed them all. 

I want to howl for Ginny, for Hogwarts, my life, for everything I haven't had and now am leaving behind. I don't know if I will ever come back to reclaim it.

I don't want to go. _I don’t._ I am so scared and tired and _fed up._

I don't know what I'm doing, _what's the plan?_ There is no plan. I know nothing. Dumbledore had a plan, but he didn't live long enough to tell me.

_He could have told me long ago,_ the traitorous thought worms its way into my mind. _He had more than enough time to tell me everything if he wanted me to know._

Why didn't he do it? Why leave me like that - groping in the darkness for the shreds of knowledge that elude me at every turn?

I don't know, and he will never tell me.

"Harry? What is it?" Hermione asks, and I realise I've been staring into space for too long.

I don't know how to put it so they'd understand, I hardly understand it myself.

"What's the matter?" Ron frowns.

"There's this _thing_ that Dumbledore had asked of me. Just before... he died." 

I stop, and they stop with me. People are brushing past us, their faces grave.

"What thing?"

"Well..." I don't know where to begin. "I'd better show you."

They exchange glances and follow me to the castle.

**

The opening door startles me. It's been a few days. How long? I don't know for certain. A week, maybe, or more, or less, I don't know. I’ve ceased to care. At first, I expected it to open any second. When Potter didn't come in a few hours and didn't come the next morning, and the next evening, and didn't come, and didn't come, and didn't come – I stopped waiting.

The elf brings me food three times a day. Our former elf. He gives me nasty looks but doesn't talk. I don't talk either. I'd never been as cruel to house-elves as my Father was, though as far as I recall, neither was I very nice. So I'd better keep my mouth shut. I began to add _'Thank you',_ just in case, so that the wretched creature could never tell Potter I provoked him.

At first, I didn't leave the bed, though sleep wouldn't come. I lay, staring at the patch of bright blue skies outside of the window; as it faded into white and darkened to grey and deepened into black, dotted with stars, then paled into white, and gained blue again, and brightened, and repeated, repeated, repeated.

The sky is fake, there's no 'outside' behind the window. The window is fake, it's not a window. It's the Room playing tricks with me, so that I’ll find my prison pleasant. And pleasant it is.

Eventually, I had to get out of bed and visit the bathroom. That's where I saw the bath. A huge white marble basin with shining taps. It looked so inviting. I began to unbutton my shirt but then my hands stilled. What if Potter came and saw me in the bath, naked?

Potter wouldn't come. He left me here for good. He left me here to rot. I undressed and filled the bath with hot water and climbed in, and it felt really good... until my gaze dropped to my left forearm. I squeezed my eyes shut and wept. Not for taking the Mark, no. Maybe a little, though. For the mere pain alone, I would have never agreed to take it if I knew beforehand. On the eve before I was branded, my Father told me that if I endured the pain without screaming, it would very much please him. I promised I would try. _Haha._ I fainted halfway before the Dark Lord was done with me, and bore the rest without complaint. Though I doubt it pleased my Father much. The sheer agony of it... They say even Snape shrieked like crazy receiving the Mark.

I wept for my Mother and the thought that I'll never see her again. For her safety and mine - Potter said.

But what a life would that be?

I wept.

It was yesterday, I think, or a week ago, or perhaps it never happened and I dreamt it all.

So when the door opens _now,_ when I am already certain it never will, I nearly lose my shit.

Potter enters. He looks better than when I last saw him, I give him that. Behind him, I see Granger's bushy hair and Weasel's red mop.

Why the hell bring them here?

They gape, and so do I.

Then I remember that I'm dead - as far as they must be aware - and rise from the armchair to show that I am pretty much alive and stand tall and proud so that they won’t take me for some stupid ghost.

_"Malfoy."_ Weasel's eyes bulge.

"Weasley."

"Harry?" Granger says faintly.

"So..." Potter gestures at me. "This is Malfoy."

"We know it is," Weasel supplies. "What the hell? You said he was dead."

Do I hear the regret in Weasel's voice, or merely disappointment?

"Urghm... long story." Potter scratches his head. "You'd better sit down."

We do. I lower myself back into the armchair. Granger and Weasel sit on _my_ bed. Potter remains standing in the middle of the room.

"So." He crosses his arms over his chest. "Well... that time when I... used Sectumsempra on Malfoy in the bathroom..."

He tells them everything from the night in the hospital he came to apologise. I watch Granger's and Weasel's faces rather than listen... until he comes to the part of his conversation with Dumbledore after I left.

_The debt._

I stare at him.

So this is what it was. He didn't merely _'promise'_ Dumbledore to protect me as he told me. He didn't have a choice, he still doesn't. If he fails to protect me, he dies. A chill spreads to my fingertips. I think I should laugh at the irony and mock Potter, tell him that this is what he deserves for gutting me in the bathroom. But then I remember how he came to apologise, and what had happened next. Everything's changed, and things are not quite what they seem. I realise I don't want to be mean to Potter, at least about this debt. If he didn't come that night, didn't persist, didn't drag me to Dumbledore - what would have become of me? Would things be any different? Dumbledore would have probably died anyway, only _I_ would have killed him.

But what's the difference in the end? Either way, he is dead and nothing will bring him back.

"So Malfoy led Death Eaters in on Dumbledore's orders," Potter says, and his friends stare at me as though I've grown a pair of horns.

"Once they met on the Astronomy Tower, Dumbledore pretended to kill Malfoy and made me promise I'd help him. So now everyone thinks he's dead, and I brought him here.”

_But hell if I know what to do with him,_ Potter doesn't say.

"Bloody hell, Harry," Weasel says.

"What are you going to do with him?" Granger voices my thoughts.

I see that they both are not quite convinced of my agenda, and to say that they are not happy about it would be an understatement.

"I'm still here, in this room," I remind them sourly.

Fuck, why did Potter have to bring these two here? Was it absolutely necessary? They hate me, and not without a reason, I must admit. If Potter is counting on their help with the solution as to what to do with me, he is mistaken. His friends will only make everything worse. Worse for me.

Turns out, this is what Potter does - he expects Granger to figure things out for him. 

"But..." Granger gives me a dirty look and turns to Potter. "Are you _sure,_ Harry? How do you know he doesn't still serve You-Know-Who?" 

_Here we go._

"She's right," Weasel joins.

She's wrong, but I can't prove it. Not to these two. Whatever I might have said or done would never be enough. And they don't even know yet I've got the Mark on my forearm.

But there is Dumbledore's word against their suspicions, and for Potter it outweighs their reasons.

"Dumbledore told me so," Potter replies, and I almost exhale in relief. Turns out, I’ve come to know Potter a little bit.

"But what if he was mistaken?" Granger insists. "He trusted Snape, Harry, and Snape killed him."

She's right, damn her. 

_She’s right._

I still can't wrap my head around the fact that Snape managed to fool Dumbledore.

The three of them stare at me as though it was I who killed Dumbledore, but I have eyes only for Potter. There's something in his face... and I remember that night by the lake when I broke down in front of him. He didn't tell them, he just said that he _'persuaded'_ me to go to Dumbledore. He is probably thinking the same, weighing the chances whether all that was pretend, whether I only played the part and faked everything: my tears, my terror, my desperation, my fear for my Mother's life. Potter stares and stares and I stare back. _Fuck him,_ I may have proved myself to be a coward and a weakling and earned nothing but his contempt, but I'll have him know, that night by the lake I wasn't false.

"No," he finally says, not breaking eye contact, "in this Dumbledore wasn't mistaken."

"How do you know, Harry?!" Weasel rises to his feet.

"_I know,"_ Potter snaps, "and, besides, I am bound to protect his life anyway. I need a place to hide and keep him, once we leave Hogwarts."

"I'm still here, Potter," I remind him.

"Oh, _shut up."_ He cringes and goes to sit down on the bed next to Granger.

"Hermione, I need your help to figure it out. I can't leave him wandering around unprotected. Dumbledore said if something happened to him, I'd die."

"What the hell, _why?"_ Weasel says, annoyed, heading to stare out of the window.

Shit, the pig-head pisses me off. _"Because_ Potter almost spilled my entrails out on the floor and nearly killed me, Weasley, and now he bears the consequences."

"_Almost_ and _nearly_." Weasel rolls his eyes. "Listen, _you..."_ His hands clench into fists. "If he had killed you, everything would be much simpler, you know."

"Ron!" Granger raises her voice.

"Ron," Potter adds.

_"What?!" _

"Listen to yourself." Granger shakes her head. "And besides... Malfoy is right. It is only fair... the way it is," she adds reluctantly, "it is just."

Granger is just; I have to give her that. If anything, she is just.

"What am I going to do with him?" Potter asks. "He can't stay here forever."

"Maybe he can?" Weasel suggests, glaring at me. "Leave him here to rot. It's not the worst way to rot anyway..." He plucks a grape from the fruit bowl on the windowsill and stuffs it into his mouth.

There is no lack of food, though I barely eat. The elf brings it and takes it away thrice a day. 

Weasel chews noisily, and I grind my teeth, wishing I could punch his ugly mouth.

"Where's the guarantee he won't leave Hogwarts and go wandering around, getting himself killed? Or he may even return to You-Know-Who's side," Granger says grimly.

"Hermione's right." Potter rubs his eyes under the glasses. "I need him where I can keep an eye on him."

"Grimmauld Place? I don't know...perhaps?" Granger offers uncertainly.

_Grimmauld Place? _

_What the hell? The ancestral home of the Black family? Is she mad? What does it have to do with her?_ I think but hold my tongue.

Potter looks at her, eyes narrowed. 

"The Order doesn't-" she continues eagerly until Potter puts his palm on her thigh and squeezes, urging her to stop talking.

"I get it." He throws me a brief look. "You are probably right, but I need to check first."

The three of them exchange glances, and I know there's more to it than I'm aware of. Whatever it is, they are not about to tell me.

**

Unable to sleep, I toss on the sofa over and over, winding the blanket around my legs. Fuck. I sit up to disentangle myself. The faint moon throws barely a hint of light from the window. This place is dark and creepy, and most certainly cursed. 

I hate it.

I'd rather prefer the cosy bedroom the Room of Requirement provided for me at Hogwarts. At least the space was small and clean, and I felt perfectly safe there. Yet, here I am. In the vast living room of the ancestral home of the House of Black, tossing on the ancient sofa. I couldn't bring myself to sleep in one of the bedrooms on the upper floors. Potter said I may take whichever room I want. So the living room it is.

Several weeks ago, he dragged me out of bed in the middle of the night. A house-elf stood beside him, the most ancient and ugly one I’ve ever seen.

“You’re leaving Hogwarts,” Potter said, “Kreacher will apparate you to a safe place.”

“What place?” I tried to blink the grogginess away.

“My house. Come on, get dressed.”

“Your house? Your Muggle relatives’ house?”

“No, my own house. Come on, Malfoy.”

I had no idea Potter owned a house. “Okay.” I grabbed my clothes from the armchair and headed to the bathroom to change out of my pyjamas. I dressed as quickly as I could, wary of asking more questions, for they obviously annoyed Potter.

The house belonged to him, he explained as soon as I emerged from the bathroom, and was under the Fidelius Charm, so no one could Apparate in and out. He inherited it from Sirius Black, Mother's madman of a cousin, who happened to be Potter's godfather to boot. It was plainly written in Sirius' will that after his death Potter would get everything in his possession. That meant the house was his, as well as Kreacher, who obviously hated his new master, though he was bound to serve anyway.

I would stay in the house for the time being, Potter said. For how long - he didn't know. He had to return to his Muggle relatives until his seventeenth birthday. He’d turn of age at the 31st of July and then... He didn't know what then. He had a lot of things to do and no idea how long it would take to complete them.

What things? It was stupid of me to ask. I did anyway. He didn't tell me.

So Kreacher apparated me out of Hogwarts and brought me here. Potter hasn’t visited ever since. My only company in this creepy old place is the creepy old elf. The house drives me mad. Huge, ugly and dingy - scary. I chose the living room's sofa as my sleeping place. I don't care for the upper floors, for the grand staircase with the house-elves' heads on pikes along its walls.

Kreachers serves food and never talks. Potter had ordered him not to. Days pass in the gloomy silence and sounds of the elf moving about the kitchen. Nights pass in distorted sleep and nightmares.

I think of Potter and Dumbledore, of Snape and my Father, of what's happening out there while I rot in this place - I have no clue.

But mostly I think of my Mother. 

I ceased crying long ago. In that tiny bedroom at Hogwarts, in another life, I wept all my tears out. I am barren and hollow and not alive. What's the point? I sometimes ask myself. What's the point of hiding and sitting here, if I could leave the house and breathe... or get caught, or killed - I barely care.

Barely, but still. 

I still don't have the courage to make that final step.

I trudge on.

One day, when I heard the door opening, I completely lost my shit. The sound was in the Entrance Hall, and for a second my heart leapt, expecting Potter... but then Dumbledore's damned _shadow_ rose on the threshold and Mrs. Black's portrait started to shriek, but then all the noise abruptly died down. I instantly knew it wasn't Potter. Whoever it was, they must not see me. In a panic, I sprang on my feet, not knowing where to hide. The footsteps were approaching, and the living room door stood open, offering me on display. But then Kreacher was there; he waved his hand, covering us both with a Disillusionment Charm. My heart in my throat, I stood there, watching as Snape emerged and headed briskly up the main staircase. He came back in some fifteen minutes and left the house the same way he arrived.

Hell if I know what that meant. For a few days, I was jumpy and anxious, expecting his return any minute. He never came back, so eventually, I'd ceased to fret.

I lie back down on the sofa and close my eyes, beginning to drift, when the door bangs. Mrs. Black's portrait shrieks and I hear the _swoosh_ of Dumbledore's shadow and... _voices._

I go cold.

There are a few of them.

_DEATH EATERS._

If Snape can enter the house, surely others can.

"Shut _up,_ you ugly, old..." the voice rises, and the portrait falls silent.

My limbs turn to jelly with relief.

_Granger._

I sit up on the sofa.

".... Hermione," Potter says. 

Potter.

_Potter, Potter!_

_Finally._

I don't know what's the matter with me, but Potter's voice sends my mind reeling, sends my heart racing, fills me with hope. _Finally. _I realise all this time I've been waiting for his return. And now I'm alive again.

The light flares on, and I stare at the three of them in the doorway. Grim, stony-faced, all three hold me at the wand point. We stare at each other in silence. Potter is the first to lower his wand.

"Malfoy," he says warily, looking me up and down, and I want to squirm in my pyjamas.

Granger lowers her wand, but Weasel doesn't.

Potter tucks his wand in his pocket and heads to the armchair. With a sigh, he collapses, rubbing at his scar. "Kreacher!"

The elf appears. "Master."

"Ron, lower your wand," Potter says. Reluctantly, Weasel obeys.

"Kreacher, we are staying here - my friends and I."

The elf nods and disappears.

Potter's face is smeared with dirt, his hair dusty as though debris fell on his head. Granger is no better.

"What's happened?" I blurt.

"None of your business," Weasel snaps, dropping down in another armchair.

"We got attacked at the wedding," Potter replies, "there's a Trace on me. We have to stay here for the time being.

"Wedding?" I repeat dumbly. 

"Ron's brother's wedding. Scrimgeour is dead; the Death Eaters have taken the Ministry." Potter's voice is hollow. "We left immediately, and now we can't go back without drawing attention. It's too dangerous for anyone to associate with me."

"With _us,"_ Granger corrects him.

Potter stands up. "Kreacher!" 

The elf reappears.

"Do you have something strong? I mean... a drink - Firewhisky?"

"Yes, Master." The elf snaps his fingers, and a bottle swims in the air through the doorway surrounded with four glasses.

"Thank you, Kreacher."

Potter grabs the bottle and a glass, pouring generously and handing it to Granger. She gives him a grim look.

"Fuck, we need it right now," Potter says, taking the second glass and filling it for Weasley. I see his hands are shaking. He spills a bit and licks it off his fingers. He fills the next one and sends it in my direction. "There, Malfoy."

I grab it out of the air, mumbling, "Thanks."

Potter fills his glass and puts the bottle down onto the floor. He raises his glass briefly, not in a toast, but as though in an afterthought, then throws his head back and swallows the contents in one go. 

I do the same. The fiery liquid burns its path down my throat and spreads in my chest. I hear Granger coughing and press my palm to my mouth to wait the burn out. When I look up at Potter, he is staring down into his empty glass. As though feeling my gaze, he looks up and our eyes meet.

When he nods at me, and I nod back... _I know._

Whatever it is - I know - _it has begun_

**

They plot something, I know. The three of them. They will never tell _me_ \- the outcast.

They shut themselves in the kitchen, often summon Kreacher, and talk, talk, talk. Whisper when I'm around, giving each other signs. Fall silent whenever I so much as glance in their direction. Cryptic conversations:

_'...locket, diary, ring...'_

_'...ring, diary, locket...'_

_'...fake...'_

_'...seven...six...four...'_

_'...Dumbledore...'_

_'...R.A.B...'_

Once I even heard someone else there in the kitchen, a man's voice. People talking over each other, shouts and commotion. But when they emerged, there were only three of them. 

In fact, there are neither four of us in the house, nor _'the trio'_ and I. It's ‘two’, ‘one’ and ‘one’. 

Granger and Weasley are so obvious that even _I_ cringe and feel half-annoyed with Potter and half-sorry for him when he doesn't see when he is being a third wheel. I can't say I mind that much though. Caught up in each other, Weasley and Granger don't pay me much attention. Their distracted indifference is better than their hostility.

Potter's got to side with me in that regard. I don't mind. He talks to me sometimes and overall doesn't act like I don't exist. When he looks in my direction, he looks _at me,_ not through me like his friends do. It's far from calling it a 'friendship' or even 'getting along'. He is cautious and never talks much; we keep our distance, but somehow I feel that Potter doesn't hate my guts, not anymore. I don't think I hate him either.

I feel utterly useless. In the evenings, I used to retreat to the living room balcony - to stay out of the way. Just like now. I sit on the floor with my back to the wall and listen to the whispering of trees in the dark back garden. I don't know how long I've been sitting like that. Hours. I inhale deeply. The air is sweet with summer and reminds me of the Manor gardens and our strolls with Mother in the twilight.

Mother. I try to will the thoughts of her away. I am afraid of these thoughts. I know I will probably never see her again. As long as I am 'dead', she is safe and so am I. Everyone gains, really, if I am dead.

The thought strikes me that, had I died, had I ceased to exist, it would have made no difference to anyone, including me. I can hardly call this a life - the way I live now. I'm weak and useless, and everyone hates me. Well, Potter doesn't, or so I wish to think, but it makes no difference in the end. There is a chance, of course, that Potter may defeat the Dark Lord and save us all from this misery... but honestly, I don't believe it. He is doomed; he probably knows it, too.

I stretch my legs out in front of me on the stone floor of the balcony and wince as pins and needles prickle my toes. I've been sitting here for too long. I get on my feet and reach for the door handle. 

When I slip into the living room, it's completely dark. I take a step forward and stop dead because there's rustling on the sofa. A sigh and... hot breathing, and... kissing sounds... _"Ron..."_

_Oh shit_

Granger and Weasley are doing _it_.

Unaware of me on the balcony, they have come here, while I was unaware of them.

"Nghhh..." Weasley grunts, and there as a metallic click of a belt unbuckling.

_Fuuuck_

Now what?

"Touch me."

Strangely aroused and disgusted at the same time, I silently step back, intending to retreat to the balcony and wait it out until they are done, when the lights in the room flare on. 

Potter is blinking in the doorway with his hand on the switch.

Granger is straddling Weasley on the sofa, her T-shirt up under her armpits. His fly undone, Weasley's hands fondle her small tits in a black bra. The two of them gape at Potter and me in turns.

My face burning, I look away and meet Potter's eyes. In silence, we stare at each other across the room. 

"Sorry," he utters, his face horrified, steps back out of the room and slams the door.

The pair on the sofa turns to me. Granger slides off Weasley's lap and tugs her T-shirt down.

I dash past them to the door and switch the lights off on my way out. _Shit... _I stride into the hall... No doubt they thought I was deliberately standing there all along, getting off like a pervert. I turn the corner and head down the steps to the basement. When I enter the kitchen, Potter is there at the table with his face crimson and bewildered eyes.

_Fuck_

I turn on the spot and exit, hurrying up the steps, back along the hall, past the damned living room door and up the staircase to my bedroom. I've used the living room as my sleeping place before, but when Potter and those two had returned, I moved to the bedroom on the first floor, just to the right of the staircase. It's dark and shabby, and I don't like it. Not that I particularly care.

I flop on my bed and close my eyes. Why is it always my wretched luck? Once I walked in on Blaise sucking off Theo Nott. Last Christmas when I stayed at Hogwarts. They were experimenting, Blaise told me later.

Potter's friends would be better _experimenting_ in their bedroom.

**

The next day, none of us speaks to each other. The awkward silence hangs in the air, our embarrassment palpable.

Weasley and Granger usually never address me, that's nothing new, but now they don't speak to Potter either.

Potter, in turn, avoids everyone's eyes and only clears his throat.

After dinner, I walk out through the kitchen door to sit on the porch in the backyard. I need fresh air, and now I'd better avoid the living room balcony. Let them fuck on the sofa to their hearts’ content.

In half an hour, twilight gives way to the darkness, and the garden lamp above the porch switches on. I prop my chin on my knee and sit and sit and sit.

The door creaks open, and I look over my shoulder. Potter.

Seeing me, he makes a move to leave, but then says: "Do you mind if I sit down?"

"No," I reply and stand up to leave.

"No, stay," Potter says, lowering himself on the steps. "Really, Malfoy, stay."

I shrug and stay.

We sit.

"At least here we won't get in the way," Potter breaks the silence and nods at the house.

"Yeah," I agree. "Last night..." I clear my throat. "I wasn't there on purpose, no matter what they think. I spent the evening on the balcony, and when I went back, they were there. I had no idea."

"I know," Potter says. "It's so... awkward, you know..." He picks at the grass that grows between the stone tiles. "We've always been together, you see, the three of us. Until now, when they... when they're _together,_ and I am no longer a part of it. Sometimes I feel like... an outcast. It's stupid, I know, but..." He trails off.

"It's not stupid," I say, "it's... normal, I guess." I turn to him. "To feel the way you do."

Potter gives me a long look. "It's not like I'm _jealous_ or... anything, and I'm happy for them, truly, but..." He shrugs, looking away.

"You feel lonely," I say, suddenly realising it's true. 

"I... yes. Yes, you’re right."

We say nothing for some time, then: "Do you have a girlfriend?" Potter asks.

"No."

"Me neither," he says quietly.

"You dated Weasley's sister."

"We broke up."

"Why?"

"Reasons," he says, "I just... I broke up with her, to keep her safe. It's dangerous to associate with me. For anyone, let alone my 'official' girlfriend." He makes quotes in the air. I guess I hear the bitterness in his voice.

"The wedding... was the last time we met, and... and she kissed me."

"For the first time?" I mumble. 

It's so embarrassing to have this conversation with Potter, but tonight he seems to be in a rare mood for talking, and I don't mind. I'm fed up with silence. Let him talk. I prop my chin on my hand.

"No." Potter shakes his head. "Not for the first time, of course... but she _kissed_ me, you know... like she never kissed me before."

I look at him sideways, at his profile in the mellow light of a garden lamp. With all that talk of kissing, my gaze immediately falls on his mouth. On his full lower lip, on his upper lip, on its precisely cut bow. He is saying something, but I hardly listen, imagining those lips meeting the other lips and _touching_, caressing, opening up under someone's kiss, kissing back, back, back, letting tongues slide together _and..._ For some reason, I don't like this idea of Weasley's sister kissing Potter like _that _\- the way he put it - like she never kissed him before. This whole thing about Potter kissing embarrasses me. Not kissing, but _Potter kissing. _

I've never kissed anyone, I mean... Pansy in our fifth year doesn't count. She just insisted that she needed practice, and I, as a good friend, absolutely must help her out. So it wasn't real kissing.

Now, staring at Potter, there's this weird certainty in my guts, that if he offered to make out - right here and now - I wouldn't mind at all. I have no idea where it comes from, but it feels perfectly fine and I'm sure I would like it a lot. _Now. With Potter._

It's probably because for a while Potter has been the closest person to me. In fact, he's the only person I ever talk to; the only one who is aware that I exist and acknowledges my presence, who doesn't recoil as though I'm diseased every time he lays eyes on me. It has to make some kind of connection. I consider Potter _mine,_ I guess. My _what?_ I don't know. _My person?_ The mere notion is ridiculous as I'm thinking about it. But I definitely don't like to imagine Potter being kissed by Weasley's sister. I look away.

"That's when I realised," he continues, unaware of my inner turmoil, "that if I indulged in it for another moment, I would have never left her, would have never had the courage to walk away. That she could have persuaded me to take her with me, and I couldn’t risk her life and safety."

I am really glad that Weasley girl isn't here with us, but my stomach sinks anyway. Because Potter has just all but confirmed my suspicions: they are on a mission, the three of them; secret and dangerous, one that includes no one else.

"You're leaving soon," I turn to him.

"I don't know, maybe... er... probably yes. Eventually, we might." He looks at me, surprised at the sudden change of topic. "How do you know?"

"I'm not blind." I shrug. "Or deaf, or stupid. I notice things." Not looking at him, I fiddle with my wand. "You’re going to leave me behind."

He doesn't deny it.

I despair. He will leave me here and I can do nothing. I'll have to stay in this wretched house forever. I have nowhere else to go, my Mother thinks I’m dead anyway, and at least here I'm safe. Not like it does me any good. This safety isn’t any better than prison.

"What am I going to do once you leave?" I finally bring myself to ask. "I can't stay here forever."

"Why not? You can." Potter turns to me. "You can't go with us and... this _thing,_ my debt... it would be better if I knew you were safe and I didn't have to look out for you."

I know he's right.

Of course he is.

I can't go with him, and I don't think I'm too eager to go either, but the prospect of staying trapped here alone makes me feel doomed. 

I want to cry.

I won't cry. I'm done crying in front of Potter. 

"You're right." I stand up and open the kitchen door. "Goodnight.”

**

I've taken up the habit of sitting on the back porch with Malfoy in the evenings. After the epic embarrassment with Ron and Hermione two weeks ago, things had gotten back to normal, but I avoid getting in their way, trying to give them the privacy they need.

"Do you like to play the third wheel?" Malfoy asked me once. "That's what you are doing."

"I'm not!" I protested, though deep down I knew I was.

"You are." He shrugged.

"Okay, I am," I agreed.

But I've stopped doing that ever since. At least, I've been trying to.

So I spend evenings with Malfoy on the back porch by the kitchen door. He's not that bad. He's not bad at all. I've come to appreciate his company.

I know he hates being excluded, hates that we never tell him anything of our plans. But it's the way things are, I cannot help it.

"Tomorrow morning we’re planning to go somewhere, do things," I say, and I know what his reaction will be. Though he tries not to show it, I know he's afraid to be left behind. "If everything goes as planned, we'll be back by lunchtime."

He looks up. "And if not?"

"It will," I say and look away. I don't want to think about all the 'what ifs' if something goes wrong, lest I lose my determination to go at all. Hermione's plan of ambushing the Ministry is madness, but it's not like we have a better one. And we need that locket.

"You are not returning," he says quietly.

"No, I mean, we plan to... sort something out and return. We hope that nothing goes wrong."

"Where?" Malfoy asks. He picks at the grass between the tiles and throws it in front of him on the steps. 

I follow the movements of his hand with my eyes. "The Ministry," I finally say after a hesitation. Hermione would kill me if she heard me now. I wouldn't blame her, she has more than enough reasons to hate and mistrust Malfoy.

Do I trust him?

I don't know. However, I don't distrust him completely anymore, this much I can tell. And I see no harm in telling him about the Ministry. It's not like I've told him about Horcruxes or anything. _Besides, if we get into trouble, he's the only person who knows of our whereabouts,_ says the treacherous thought. I try not to dwell on it.

"The _Ministry?!"_ Malfoy raises his voice in a whisper. "Are you fucking _insane?_ You are going to get yourself killed."

"It's dangerous, yes, but we have to. There's no other way to bring Vol... You-Know-Who down."

"I’m not even going to ask what you're going to do there." Malfoy shakes his head.

"It’s better if you don’t," I agree. "Trust me."

We sit in silence for a long time.

It's getting late, and I need a good rest; we plan to set out in the early morning. I get to my feet. "I'm going to bed."

Malfoy stands up, too. 

"Good luck, Potter." He offers his hand.

I shake it. "Thanks."

He nods and sits back down on the steps.

I look at his back and hunched shoulders, at his blond hair, golden in the lamplight. Uneasiness lodges in my chest, ties my stomach in knots. He's right, it's madness, and chances are high that we won't return.

"See you, Malfoy," I say to his back and leave.

**

They left this morning. I saw them through the window, Disapparating from the front porch. 

I wait and wait. And _wait._ I've been standing by the window for hours. It is lunchtime, they left at eight.

I despair.

And wait, and watch the front porch, expecting to see them reappear any moment, ceasing to hope that they will.

_Please, let them come back,_ I pray to some unknown power, repeating the words over and over. _Please, make them come back._

_Bring Potter back._

Standing here, staring at the porch, I realise that I'm not only afraid of what would become of me if I'm left alone. I am also afraid for Potter, afraid that something may happen to him. I have no one but Potter, and now when he's gone, I am alone in the world, lost.

_Please, make him come back._

As though having heard my prayers, Potter appears on the porch. I cry out in relief, ready to dash there and throw the door open and drag him inside.

Weasley is gripping Potter's shoulder, holding Granger's hand, but... I see Yaxley appearing behind, clutching at the hem of Granger's jacket. Granger kicks him sideways, and the three of them suddenly disappear, leaving Yaxley alone on the porch. Everything happens in the blink of an eye.

Yaxley grabs the door handle.

I bolt out, away from the window, aware that he is already opening the door.

There is a _crash!_ in the hall, a _swoosh,_ Yaxley swears, and Mrs. Black begins to yell.

I dash down the stairs to the basement, praying that her shrieks cover the noise I make. When I wrench the kitchen door open, by the sounds from the hall I realise Yaxley is dealing with Dumbledore's shadow. I sprint across the kitchen to the backyard and shut the door, leaning with my back against it, and try to catch my breath. Insane with terror, I realise that Yaxley is going to search the house. Even if he doesn't intend to do it right now, he'll let Death Eaters do it later, now that Fidelius has failed. 

In a panic, I rush forward and stumble over the steps, falling face forward into the grass with my wand in my outstretched hand. Something stings my chest through the front pocket of my shirt. I reach into the pocket and retrieve a golden galleon. The coin is very hot, it stings, it burns my fingers, and I almost drop it... but the next moment darkness swirls me away.

______________________________________________________________

_[1] Harmonia Nectere Passus_ \- derives from the Latin words "harmonia" - "harmony", "nectere" - "to tie, bind," and "passus" - "step, pace.” The spell that Draco Malfoy used to mend the broken Vanishing Cabinet in the Room of Requirement and make it work again in “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” by J.K. Rowling.

_[2] "Severus... Severus, please." – _Albus Dumbledore to Severus Snape, “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” by J.K. Rowling.


	2. Horcruxes

**Chapter 2**

**HORCRUXES**

I hit the ground hard and growl at the dull, throbbing pain in my back.

I'm in the forest, the sky above is blue, screams, _screams_ fill the air.

My heart still racing after the close brush with Yaxley, I prop myself on my elbows.

_"Harry!_ Dittany in my bag, _now!"_

"What happened to him?!" Potter shouts somewhere from behind.

_"Dittany, hurry!"_ Granger cries.

His back arching, Weasley thrashes on the ground, his head lolling back in the heap of the autumn leaves. The inhuman sounds filling the air come from his throat, and his arm... _fuck._ My insides turn over. It's not missing, _not quite._ But almost. It hangs, connected to his body only with the thin shred of skin. Blood, so much _blood,_ and I think I see the bone in the place where... _fuck..._ A kick in the gut from inside sends me on my all fours as I vomit my breakfast onto the grass. Shaking, I spit on the ground, wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and rise on unsteady feet. I realise I'm still clutching my wand in my hand and the coin in the other.

_"Malfoy?" _

I turn.

Potter is on his knees, his arm deep in a tiny beaded bag up to his elbow.

"Harry, come _on!"_

Potter retrieves his hand from the bag and points his wand. "Accio Dittany!" A tiny vial flies out of the bag and slams into his palm.

"How did you find us?" Potter's face is bloodied, dirty and bewildered.

"I don't know, the coin-" I open my palm.

"Harry! Pour dittany into the wound! Five drops, hurry!" Granger yells, springing on her feet. She runs around, slashing the air with her wand. "Salvio Hexia! Protego Totalum! Repellum Muggletum! Muffliato!"

"What are you doing?" Potter runs to kneel by Weasley's side and uncorks the vial. His hands are shaking.

"Protective spells!" Granger goes on and on, around the clearing, repeating the spells over and over, making the air shimmer and shift.

"Fuck!" Potter swears. "My hands are shaking." 

The drops fall into the wound. "...four...five," Potter counts.

Weasley utters a horrible shriek and falls silent.

"Hermione!" Potter shouts in panic. "Hermione! He fainted!"

"Celario!"[3] Granger says next to me, and I watch as Potter and Weasley vanish from view. The place where they have just been shimmers and the air settles, revealing only empty clearing in front of me with the forest in the background.

_What?!_

"Celario!" Granger moves in front of me, and another portion of space shimmers, hiding her from my view.

She is shutting me out! I realise with a jolt. She is shutting me out of the protective sphere! A bit more and I won't be able to find them.

Granger steps in front of me again. "Cela-"

_"Potter!"_ I yell at the top of my lungs, trying to peer around Granger. She shoves me in the chest.

_"Potter, wait!"_

Without Weasley's screams, the silence is deafening.

_"Potter!!!"_ I shout for dear life.

The tip of her wand presses into my chest. Her face is set, hard as stone. She's not a schoolgirl anymore. Dread fills me. This is the face of a person capable of anything. She may be on the Light side of things, but her hand would bring me down in a blink of an eye and not waver.

Potter appears at her side.

"Potter!" I seek his eyes. 

He points his wand at me. I can't believe it. In dread, I realise that he won't help me. It's not the Potter I've known for the past few weeks. Not the one I talked to in the dark in 'our' spot behind the kitchen door. Not the one who brought me to his house.

It's someone else. 

Someone without mercy.

He glares. "How did you find us?" 

"The coin." I show him my open palm. "It must have been a portkey."

Potter frowns.

_I'm lost,_ I think, _If I don't break through his walls, I am lost._

"I saw you on the porch... and Yaxley, then you disappeared," I explain hastily, "the coin grew hot in my pocket, I touched it and it brought me here."

"How?" Granger asks, her voice steely.

There's no way of persuading her, I know. The only one whose opinion matters is Potter.

"I don't know...but it _did."_ It sounds weak, unconvincing, as though I'm making it up. I myself would never believe it. Panic grips me.

"Harry, he's _lying!_ Yaxley sent him."

His face grim, Potter glances at Granger and then turns to me. My time is running out. If he listens to her, nothing will help me.

"No, _no... _Potter, _please!"_ I step forward, and the tip of Granger’s wand digs into my chest.

"Harry," she warns.

"Potter, I _swear..."_ I am shaking. "I'm telling the truth. It's the coin Dumbledore gave me! I _told_ you, remember?!"

Potter frowns and reaches into the pocket of his jeans, retrieving a coin. Doubt crosses his face.

"Harry..." Granger steps forward, making me step back.

"I found it at the Astronomy Tower, later," he says. "When we threw Yaxley off and left Grimmauld... I thought something stung me through the pocket..."

"See?!" I grasp this last straw. "They are connected, that's why! Potter, _please!_ I'm not lying, I’m not!" I plead. I sound so weak and miserable, disgusting. "You owe me the debt. You promised Dumbledore that you’d protect me," I whisper, searching his face, trying to make him _look_ me in the eyes and see that I'm not lying.

Potter puts his hand on Granger's shoulder and steps forward. Frowning, he reaches out to grip my wrist and _yanks_ me towards him and inside the spelled area.

"Harry! _What_ are you doing?!" Granger's voice is bewildered.

Potter drops my wrist and closes the protective sphere around us with a spell. "He's telling the truth."

Granger shakes her head and storms off to kneel beside Weasley.

"You'd better be," Potter warns me.

His face is hard, square jaw stony; his green cat eyes bear this savage hungry gleam to them. He looks unhinged. _Dangerous._ I realise I'm afraid of _this_ Potter.

He turns away, heading to Weasley's prone form.

"Thank you," I say to his back.

**

"What happened to Weasley?" I ask Potter, watching him over the flames.

They had erected the tent and carried Weasley inside to put him on the bunk. He moans a lot in his sleep. Granger says he's getting better. She's by his side now, sitting with a book in the shabby armchair.

Potter and I are outside by the fire. The night is upon us, and it's getting cold. Potter handed me a big sandwich of cheese and bread and sat down across the fire.

"Thanks." I bite into it. It tastes good, and I am starving. I’m surprised he includes me in their meal after the 'welcome' he gave me earlier.

"Ron got splinched when we escaped Yaxley," he says, chewing. His voice is brusque, and he looks down at his sandwich, avoiding my eyes.

"Look, Potter," I say, "you don't believe me, but Yaxley didn't send me."

Potter looks up.

"I saw him on the porch and hid in the kitchen, and the coin...he didn't even see me, I swear, I-"

"If I didn't believe you, I wouldn't have let you stay with us." Potter studies me over the flames.

Relief washes over me, suddenly taking all the tension away. I exhale. It feels so good, just to sit here by the fire, eat my sandwich and stop fretting, if only a little. _Potter believes me._ It’s all that matters. He lets me stay with him, and I'm not going back to that wretched house, because he _believes_ me.

"Granger doesn't believe me."

"She doesn't." Potter gets on his feet and goes back inside the tent.

I finish my sandwich and sit alone, staring into the fire, until my mind begins to drift and I struggle to keep my eyes open. I sit, half-drowsing, half-thinking, the flames of the fire mingling with images before my eyes.

Much later, Granger emerges from the tent, giving me a murderous look. "Go inside. I'm on watch."

I get on my feet and do as she says.

There are two bunk beds in the tent, a shabby armchair, and a table. Space is spelled, no doubt, so the interior is much larger than it appears from the outside. Still, it's not too vast for four people to share. There’s another room behind the flap, but I don’t dare to go and check what’s there.

Weasley is snoring, the top bunk of his two-level bed empty. In the dim flicker of the fire outside I see Potter lying quietly on the other bed with his back to me. I hesitate a moment, then climb up into the top bunk above Potter. No doubt Granger intends to 'share' Weasley's bed, I say to myself, my thoughts drifting...

When I wake up at dawn, I see Granger sleeping in the opposite bunk above Weasley, and Potter's bed is empty. The image of him guarding the entrance, sitting outside with his wand drawn, somehow makes me feel safe. I turn on my side and sleep.

**

"Incendio!" Potter shouts, again and again, rage distorting his features.

Untouched, the locket falls on the ground.

They’ve been trying to destroy the wretched thing the whole morning to no avail. It seems the locket is heavily cursed and protected.

I don't ask what it is and why it must be destroyed. They won't tell me. The only thing I gathered is that this is the item they ambushed the Ministry for and nearly got captured. After a whole day of futile attempts, they finally quit.

Days pass, we move, wary of staying in the same spot for more than a day, lest someone's eye may break through the protective spells. It is unclear, whether they hold as expected, so better not to take chances. 

I notice the three of them wear the locket in turns on the chain around their necks. It feels as though it affects their mood. Whoever wears it becomes irritable and snaps at the others, getting angry for no reason. Or maybe it's just me, seeing things. Nevertheless, there's something malicious about that locket. Vile.

Potter and Granger share their night vigils in turns. Weasley is ill, often running a fever, his left hand still bandaged. They don't trust _me_ to guard the tent while they are asleep. Or rather Granger doesn't trust me, and Potter agrees to appease her. Once he offered to share the night watches with me, so that they would be easier to bear, each of them getting better rest. Granger said no. She was adamant, and Potter didn't insist.

No one talks to me, except Potter, though even he is often not in the mood. I avoid him when he wears the locket. There's an _edge_ to him on those days. Something savage and hungry, as merciless as that first day when he wanted to shut me out of their protective sphere. It scares me.

He's changed since we left the house. He often screams in his sleep or wanders, daydreaming; he's had a few seizures similar to the one I witnessed in the Room of Requirement. Unhinged - that's what he is. 

Food is scarce. We've already run out of the stock of bread, hard cheese, biscuits, and apples Granger had in her beaded bag. We tried to pick berries and mushrooms in the forest, but none of us is an expert. For two days now, we've been living on tea with plenty of sugar that we found among the supplies of the tent.

Weasley complains. At the lack of food, at the ache in his arm, at the cold, at my presence. If not for me, he said more than once, food would have lasted longer.

He's right. I hate him.

Tonight we've made camp in a small grove at the foot of a hill. There's a farm in the distance, its flickering lights welcoming in the dark. It was Potter's idea to go look for food there, but it was I who set out under his Invisibility Cloak in the end.

Weasley protested when Potter gave me the Cloak. Potter said, in that case, he could go on his own. Granger said that no way Potter was going. Potter offered her to take the Cloak and go by herself. She said she was uncomfortable with stealing food. Weasley wouldn't go because of his wound. So it came to me again.

"Okay," Potter said, "Malfoy is going under the Cloak."

"Harry-" Weasley began.

"Otherwise he isn't going at all." Potter was adamant.

"He'll run off and take the Cloak with him!" Weasley insisted.

"He won't," Potter said.

"Isn't that what you want Weasley, me to fuck off?" I added. "Anyway, where the hell would I go?" That was the end of it.

It went better than I expected. I cast Muffliato on the barking dog that sensed my presence and managed to get into the hen house. Now, carrying about a dozen stolen eggs in my jumper and a chicken tucked under my armpit, I approach our camp, or rather the spot where I know it should be because a protective sphere conceals it from the eyes of an outsider. With a jolt, I realise that they could have moved in my absence, leaving me behind, and nothing would stop them.

No. Potter. _Potter_ wouldn't do that. If anything, he is bound to protect me for his own safety. I'd like to think that Potter wouldn't abandon me now, even without the bond, but that's probably too much to wish for. Don't be ridiculous, Malfoy.

A hand appears out of thin air in front of me. Potter's hand. My heart jumps, and I grab it, letting myself be pulled into the spelled area.

"Hi!" He grins. 

"Hi." I'm so relieved, so glad to see him. "Here, take this." I give him the made-up jumper bagful of eggs. "Eggs. Careful."

"Got it." He nods. "You brought a _chicken?"_

_"Yes."_ I wiggle my eyebrows at him. I feel a bit lightheaded with this little farm adventure and my success. And _Potter_ \- grinning at me like that. "Tonight we eat."

"I was worried you'd get caught," he says, "but you’re back with all this _food. _Guys!" He shouts in the direction of the tent. "Food! Malfoy's brought food!"

We boil the eggs in the tiny cauldron we'd found in the tent and gorge on them, seasoning them with salt we have in the tent supplies. The chicken, however, has turned out to be a bit of a problem. We can't eat it alive, can we?

"We should probably let it go," Granger says weakly, though everyone knows, she doesn't really mean it.

"Are you mad?" Weasley says in outrage, before turning to me. "Come on, Malfoy."

I don't know why he addresses me. Probably because it was I who stole it, or because I am the nearest one to the chicken right now. Or maybe because he thinks I have to be the one to do the dirty work.

I draw my wand... and lower it. "No. I can't."

The four of us stare at the chicken that walks around, picking at something on the ground. I look up at Potter. He just shakes his head.

"We should probably let it go," Granger repeats.

Weasley rolls his eyes. "For fuck's sake!" With a single slash of his wand, he neatly cuts the chicken's head off. Blood gushes hot from its neck onto the grass. Granger swears.

Weasley walks towards the chicken and picks it up. "It's good Mum insisted I learned this stuff." He looks up. _"What?_ We couldn't eat it alive."

I feel almost sorry for the chicken. _Almost._ Until it's roasting over the fire, and the smell makes my mouth water and stomach ache. Turns out, Weasley can cook and knows how to pluck a bird and clean it.

"Mum insisted," he says, turning the stick with the chicken over the spitting fire, "that we learned these basic things properly, you know."

"Good that she did," I supply, and Weasley grins at me over the flames, and even Granger smiles.

Tonight we feast, and I think it's the best thing I've ever eaten in my life. Everyone is in a good mood.

"You are good at it, Malfoy," Weasley says, wiping his greasy fingers at his jeans, "you should do that again when we need food. And I'm going to cook it, 'cause I'm good at it. Harry is the boss, and Hermione is our brains - they are of no use here, they should relax and take a break."

We grin at each other and exchange glances, and when Weasley adds: "The thief and the cook to the rescue!" - the four of us burst out laughing and can't calm down for a long time.

I feel lazy and warm, and not hungry for the first time in ages. I watch Weasley's grinning face, and Granger leaning against him by the fire. I think that they are not that bad, and maybe we can sort things out a bit and not return to our usual hostility. Potter next to me smiles to himself, and when he looks up from the fire and our eyes meet - his gaze welcomes me, makes me feel as though I belong, as though now I am one of them. I smile back.

"No, but seriously," Granger says, "we _can’t_ just steal food."

"Of course we can," I reply, "otherwise we'll starve and die; and Potter’s got the world to save, remember?"

"Malfoy's right," Weasley joins, in spite of the _look_ Granger gives him, "and anyway, do you have better ideas?"

"No, but... it's wrong," Granger insists.

"Yes, it's wrong," Potter agrees, "but it's not like we're doing it for fun. If we had other means of acquiring food, we wouldn't steal it."

"There are mushrooms and berries in the forest, and-"

"Harry meant _food,_ Hermione," Weasley pokes her in the ribs, and she tries to shove him in the chest, but he catches her hand and pulls her to him and hugs her, planting a kiss at the top of her head. Granger presses her cheek to his chest and says no more.

Next to me, Potter clears his throat, and I avoid his eyes, staring into the fire. I don't really mind them cuddling, not tonight. Tonight is good. Tonight is different. Something's changed. Or I'd like to think so.

Now, I am the one to bring food, and Weasley is the one to cook it. We make our camp near farms, and after dark, I go out. No one minds. We don't starve anymore. Even Granger eventually stops talking about leaving money in hen houses, in place of the stolen eggs.

"We don't have Muggle money anyway," Weasley said, "don't tell me you want to transfigure galleons."

She finally gave up.

**

I tug the jumper over my head and grip the hem of my T-shirt, looking around.

No one.

The area is devoid of human presence - Granger checked thoroughly. We've made our camp in a forest, near a small mountain river.

I pull the t-shirt over my head and bend down to unlace my boots. Getting rid of them and my socks, I finally take off my jeans. Yes, jeans. I transfigured my trousers into them, after Potter's fashion. Practical.

Today is unusually warm for late September, but the water is a shock when I step into it. Icy cold, it grips my ankles, sending needles through the soles of my feet. I hiss and half-change my mind about having a swim. But the water is crystal-clear, a light breeze sending ripples of light over the river. I take another step, getting used to the cold, feeling the pricking of pebbles under my feet. I really need a wash. I mean, cleaning spells are all well and good, but it's not the same. I walk until the water reaches my waist and stop. Taking a deep breath, I finally dive headfirst, my body screaming all over. When I emerge, sputtering and shaking my hair out of my eyes, it's not a shock anymore, it's fun! I feel clean and alive and strong. But the water is freezing, so I must move. I dive again and emerge, and swim, enjoying the feeling in my chest and shoulders as I cut through the water with broad strokes. I probably shouldn't spend much time in the icy river, but the day is warm, and I don't know when I'll get to swim again. 

After a while, I finally turn back and head to the shore. My wet hair tickles my neck; it has grown a bit long in the past few months. Shaving spells I can manage just fine, but I’m unable to decently cut my hair. I smooth it back from my face and suddenly see Potter approaching briskly over the boulders that cover the shore. He reaches the water and stops, staring at me still standing knee-deep in the water. There's _something_ in his stare that makes me aware of my naked body. Not in a good way. _Thank Merlin, I've left my pants on,_ the weird thought crosses my mind. 

Potter looks me up and down. I cross my arms over my chest to cover the Mark on my left forearm.

"Hi," I say and it sounds nervous to my own ears.

"Hi," Potter says curtly and pulls his jumper over his head.

_Shit._

He's in one of _those_ moods. The ones I hate and try to avoid.

Potter throws the jumper on the ground, his T-shirt follows. His boots are unlaced, so he just kicks them off, barefoot. There's this _edge_ to him. The one that scares me. Something that is not entirely him, something _alien,_ hungry, dangerous. Holding my gaze, he wrenches at his belt and unbuttons his flies, pushing his jeans down in one swift movement. Went he straightens up, with a jolt I realise that he's removed his pants, too. I gape at his nakedness, at his hard cock standing forward, at the locket gleaming golden against his chest.

I suddenly remember that I'm still in the water, covered with goosebumps all over, only in my pants and hiding my forearm.

_"What?"_ He asks, defiant, and I wrench my gaze off his erection.

"Nothing," I reply, trying to hold my gaze _above_ his chest and school my face into a casual expression. 

I finally step out of the water, past Potter, and bend down for my wand on top of my clothes. I feel his presence behind my back, tension radiating off him, stirring _something_ in me. Something that draws and repels me at once. 

"What's the point of swimming in your pants and then having to dry them?" Potter says behind my back as I cast a drying spell over myself and quickly tug my long-sleeved t-shirt on to cover my arms. Only then do I turn to him. He pulls the chain with the locket over his head and hangs it on a tree branch. Not waiting for my reply, he walks into the water and dives.

I finish dressing as quickly as I can. When Potter emerges from the river, I am still lacing my boots. Shoulders hunched, he walks past me to the heap of his clothes. His erection has wilted in the cold water. He looks as though he's a bit conscious of his nakedness now, and not as self-confident as a few minutes before. Without a word, he dresses quickly and takes the locket off the branch, pulling the chain over his neck. He holds the locket in his palm for a moment and then tucks it under his jumper.

"It drives you mad, why do you have to wear it?" I ask.

He gives me an odd look. "We have to guard it; it won't do if it just lies around. It may get lost again."

"What is it?" I ask. "What's in there?"

Potter shrugs and says nothing, turning to walk away.

"Sometimes it looks as though you are too eager to put it on," I say to his back.

Potter stops. "It wants me to wear it... and... do... other things," he mumbles and walks away.

The rest of the day we avoid each other. Potter lies in the sun, toying with his snitch, and I deliberately don't look in his direction. But I can't stop imagining him naked. Thin and wiry, lithe muscles rippling alive under his skin as he stepped into the water. His slim strong thighs and prominent calves. The round globes of his small arse as he moved... and his dick, _of course,_ stiff and big, standing defiantly forward... black hair below his navel and firm stomach and flat belly, so vulnerable, _and..._ _How in hell_ did I notice all this and memorise it so precisely, if I wasn't even looking, not really, not as thoroughly as I wanted to anyway?... I shake myself.

"Hermione!" Potter calls. "Look!" He raises the snitch in his hand.

Granger puts her book down and stands up. When she approaches him, he hands her the snitch and she looks at it closely, turning it in her fingers this way and that. They sit with their heads close, murmuring in low voices for a long time. Weasley eventually joins them and looms over with his arms crossed, concealing the two of them from my sight.

It's nothing... and nothing new, really. They shut me out. We are not friends, we are not anything. 

I don’t belong. I am not one of them.

The knowledge tastes foul anyway.

**

Weasley had started it. 

It was a cold rainy morning that turned into a colder rainy day. Because of the shitty weather, the four of us were huddled together in the tent all day long. Granger was reading, and the rest of us were doing nothing, except for drinking endless tea.

I sat with my legs up in the armchair, Potter drank his tea at the table across from Granger, and Weasley lay in his bunk, staring at the ceiling. At some point, he just got up and left the tent.

_Good,_ I thought. I always breathe easier when Weasley isn't around. I mean, we've achieved a certain truce, surely, but it had only been so long. Besides, it was his turn to wear the locket.

So we sat in silence, and with Weasley absent it was not _that_ bad until Granger said out of the blue: "The sword of Gryffindor, it's goblin made!"[4] As if it were a revelation.

_If that was a puzzle she's been so desperately solving,_ I thought, _she could have just asked me long ago and be done with it._ I held my tongue. I always held my tongue around Granger.

"It's impregnated with Basilisk venom, _aaand_ you destroyed the diary with-" She continued, and Potter put his mug down.

"With the Basilisk fang, _yes,"_ he said, "so it can destroy _the..."_ Potter gave her a meaningful look. 

I looked between the two of them. _Here we go,_ I thought. They were talking puzzles again. Not that I cared, really. 

"You are _brilliant,_ Hermione!" He reached over the table to squeeze her hand. "Truly!"

"I'm only logical and notice things that others tend to overlook, and now..." Granger was bouncing in her seat.

"There's just one problem." Potter scratched his nose. 

"The sword was stolen." [5] Weasley walked into the tent, his face stony. _"Yeah." _He approached the table. There was something malicious in his deliberate gait. "I'm still here. But you two carry on." 

I sensed disaster. 

"Don't let me spoil your fun." Weasley perched his arse at the table near Potter's mug.

"What's wrong?" Potter frowned up at him.

"Wrong?" Weasley raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. "Well, nothing's wrong." He shrugged. "Not according to _you,_ anyway."

"Look, if you've got something to say, don't be shy. Spit it out." Potter rose on his feet, stuffing his fists in his pockets.

"All right," Weasley hissed, "I'll spit it out. But don't expect me to be grateful just because now there's another damn thing we've gotta find."

Potter crossed his arms on his chest. "I thought you knew what you signed up for!"

"Yeah. I thought I did, too." Weasley gave out a bitter laugh.

"Well then, I'm _sorry,_ but I don't quite understand. What part of this isn't living up to your expectations? Did you think we were gonna be staying in a five-star hotel? Finding a Horcrux every other day? You thought you'd be back with your mum by Christmas?"

Weasley pushed himself off the table. "I just thought after all this time we would have actually achieved something! I thought you knew what you were doing! I thought Dumbledore would've told you something worthwhile! I thought you had a plan!”

"I told you everything Dumbledore told me!" Potter raised his voice. "And in case you haven't noticed, we have found a horc-"

_"Harry!"_ Granger cut him off, nodding in my direction.

_"A... You-Know-What."_ Potter glanced at me and grimaced. 

"Yeah!" Weasley threw his hands up in the air. "And we're about as close to getting rid of it as we are to finding the rest of them, aren't we?"

"Ron, please." Granger stepped in front of him. "Please take it off!"

Weasley stepped around her to stare at Potter. "You don't know why I listen to the radio every night, do you? To make sure I don't hear Ginny's name. Or Fred, or George, or Mum-"

"What, you think I'm not listening too? YOU THINK I DON'T KNOW HOW THIS FEELS?!" Potter shouted.

"NO." Eyes narrowed, Weasley shook his head. "YOU DON'T KNOW HOW IT FEELS! Your parents are dead! You have no family!"

"Ron!" Granger sounded scandalised.

Face livid, Potter stepped into Weasley’s personal space. "WHAT DID YOU SAY?!"

Granger gasped, as Weasley shoved Potter, hard, sending him on the floor.

_Enough._

I sprang on my feet. 

A few strides across the tent and I grabbed Weasley's shoulder. "What _the fuck_ do you think you are doing?!"

Bewildered, Weasley turned to me. At the edge of my vision, Potter scrambled on his feet. Weasley's fist collided with my cheekbone, making me stumble back. I clutched at my face as pain exploded before my eyes.

"Get off him." Potter's voice was murderous.

When I finally blinked through the pain and looked up, Weasley held me at the wand point, and Potter's wand was pointing at Weasley.

_"Stop it! All of you!"_ Granger shouted.

"Why the hell didn't you kill him _for real?"_ Weasley stepped back, not lowering his wand. "The fucking _ferret._ He's only messing with our plans. I can _do it,_ Harry." He glanced at Potter. "He's officially _dead_ anyway, it's not like there would be much difference."

"Ron..." Granger uttered faintly, _"what_ are you saying? You don't mean it, Ron, you can't mean it, it's... Take it off! Take it off, _now!"_ She gripped the chain around Weasley's neck, trying to pull it over his head.

Weasley shrugged her hands off and flicked his wand, sending a red flash of light in my direction, when the shimmering shield of Protego flared up in front of me. Potter stepped in front of Weasley with his face livid, reached out and wrenched at the chain. Weasley cried out in pain when it cut into his neck. Potter wrenched again, and again until it snapped leaving angry red bruises on Weasley’s skin. Potter pointed his wand at the chain, mended it with a spell and put the locket around his own neck.

"Why the fuck do you always take _his_ side?!" Weasley shouted. "He's dangerous! He probably means to kill us all in our sleep and return to his bloody master!"

Potter stepped between me and Weasley. "Malfoy can't kill even a bloody _chicken,_ Ron! _You_ always did that!"

Weasley drew his wand, but Potter threw him back with a spell, sending him sprawling on the ground.

"Harry! _Stop it!_ What are you doing?!" Granger grabbed the tip of Potter's wand, trying to wrench it out of his grip.

Potter recoiled as if burnt. _"Leave!_ Both of you! I'm fed up with your conspiracy, with your-"

"Conspiracy?" Granger said faintly. "Harry... it's not you, it's _the..." _

Weasley got on his feet. “He’s right, I'm leaving." He strode to the bunk and grabbed his bag. "Are you staying, or are you going with me?" He turned to Granger.

Shocked, I gaped at the three of them. Whatever happened, I never thought it would come to _this._

"Ron, I can't!" Granger shook her head. "What are you saying? We _can’t! _We promised Harry, we-" Tears brimmed in her voice.

Something shifted in his expression and Weasley hesitated, and it looked as though he was about to reconsider, but...

"Fine then," Potter spat, _"I _am leaving!" 

He summoned his backpack and the sleeping bag from his bunk, stuffing it jerkily inside. His woollen sweater followed and a small leather pouch he often wore around his neck; he grabbed his second pair of jeans from the floor, stuffing everything angrily into the backpack, while the three of us gaped at him in silence. His silver shield charm still glimmered around me.

Finally, he turned to me and reached through the Shield to grab at my sleeve. "You'd better come with _me." _There was this alien savage note to his tone, the one that always frightened me. 

I didn't have a choice, did I? It was either follow Potter or stay with Weasley after he had threatened to kill me. I didn't need to think twice. "Okay.”

He gave me a long look, and _I swear,_ his eyes were insane.

I didn't have a choice. I had already decided to follow. Whatever happened, I had no one but Potter. He gripped my forearm and led me out of the tent to the silence of his friends. We stepped out of the protection sphere and Potter Apparated us away.

A storm was gathering in the distance, as we'd finally found a cave in the rock on the hill covered with forest.

"I think we'd better stay here for the night," Potter said.

We wandered for hours in a search of shelter since we had no tent. The cave was as good a roof as any, so we cast the protective spells and stayed.

The storm broke loose in an hour, leaving us no chance of keeping a fire.

...

I shiver and wrap my arms around myself in the sleeping bag; my stomach rumbles. I'm cold and hungry, but there's no food. My warming spells are utter shit, I'm useless, and they don't hold. It's dark and raining heavily outside. Though tired I am, the sleep wouldn't come. I've been tossing in the sleeping bag for hours.

Potter is sitting motionless at the mouth of the cave, watching the rain, his silhouette barely visible against the night.

As soon as we put the protective spells up, he took the locket off and hung it on a rock protruding from the wall, and for an instant it looked as though he had lifted a weight off his shoulders. We didn't talk.

I watch him with a heavy heart. What are we going to do now? I think he hardly knows that himself. We are alone, without any plan or purpose, and the only two people Potter ever trusted are now lost to him.

I must have been dozing off because I suddenly start at a touch on my shoulder and the rustling of the sleeping bag. Bewildered, I realise that Potter has slipped in behind me and pressed himself flush to my back. But of course, there's only one sleeping bag and it's freezing. Where else would he go?

Potter’s arm wraps around me, his breath warm at my nape. "Sorry," he whispers, "may I?... I'm... I'm so cold." He shivers. I feel his hand snake under the hem of my sweater, palm splaying cold against my stomach. My heart gives a jolt. "It's freezing," he whispers.

I hold my breath, suddenly aware that I'm getting hard. _Shit. _We lie still, Potter's palm now warm against my belly, and my stupid cock cutting into the seam of my jeans. I feel the touch of his forehead at my nape, his quiet breath warming my skin.

"Are you asleep?" He asks.

"No." Slowly, I turn to face him.

His face is very close. _Very._ In the dark, I still can see that he is without his glasses. I smell his coarse woollen sweater and his warm skin and... 

_Him_

"It's just... it's so cold and lonely, you know..." He whispers. "I'm scared and..."

"I know," I say and _kiss him._

Because it's the only thing I can do to make it better.

A soft touch of his lips is almost _not there._ His breath stills. I realise _what_ I'm doing and withdraw, utterly horrified with myself. But he follows my lips with his and seeks and finds them, kissing back, _kissing,_ kissing me back, back, _back,_ giving it all back to me.

I know he doesn't mean it, not really, and neither do I. It's just we are both cold and lonely and scared, and _this_ is the only comfort left for us tonight. We have nothing, we are less than poor; we are famished of warmth and hope and trust. But at least we can have _this._ It is better than nothing, it's more. _This_ I can give him, and take back. Because I need it badly, too.

I push him on his back and lean down. He stares up at me, his chest rising and falling under my palm. My hair falls in his face, and he reaches up to weave his fingers through it, pulling me down and finding my lips again. I slip my hands under his sweater and up his sides until I reach his armpits and pull the sweater over his head. 

He doesn't resist.

I try to sit up, but the sleeping bag doesn't let me. I wrench at it and unzip it, revealing Potter's dark form spread out on the floor. I pull my jumper and T-shirt over my head in one movement. Potter reaches up and grips me around the middle, pressing his lips to my throat and chest, and pulls me down with him.

His lips are on me.

We aren’t cold anymore.

I don't know what to do, how it's properly done. All I want is to press myself into him and _rub_ myself against him. His kisses are sloppy; he touches me through my jeans and instantly snatches his hand away. I grind down to let him know that it's okay. He grabs my waist and pulls me _down_ on him and responds with a buck of his hips.

"Wait, wait," I utter. It’s painful, I can't go on like this.

I reach down to undo my fly and finally release my aching cock. He gropes in the darkness and finds it, making me jerk. I open his fly with clumsy fingers and slide my hand beneath the waistband of his pants. His stiff cock pushes into my palm. I move it and move it and _move_ it, trapped inside the tight hot space. Potter's breaths grow urgent as he moves beneath me, pushing into my palm, stroking my cock in unsteady rhythm.

In the darkness, I barely see anything but the side of Potter's head, pressed against mine. His swollen cock is slick and alive. I can easily imagine it - red and dark - as big as I once saw it. His hand is clumsy on me, unsteady, but it is enough. Everything rises to the surface, and I am unable to hold it back. Potter _moans_ and pulses hot against me as I shudder into his palm. 

Everything is red and dark.

**

_Babe, you know I regret those words_

_Bombs that you did not deserve_

_Well alright, alright_

_And hey, usually just takes a day_

_Before we're on a brand new page_

_Alright, well that's fine_

_We turn in our apologies for peace of mind_

_Taking in this moment where it's all alright, it's all alright_

_[Troye Sivan, ‘This, this’]_

Opening my eyes, I blink stupidly at my surroundings for a few moments and reach for my glasses. The cave comes into focus and then I _remember._ Our fight with Ron, the cave, _Malfoy._

Last night flares vividly in my memory: Malfoy's hot breath on my skin, our fervent kisses, me clinging to him like a drowning man, groping for the last hope. Our frantic release in the dark, though we barely knew what we were doing... My face grows hot.

When I slipped into the sleeping bag beside him, I sought his warmth, but not like _that._ Well… _now_ I’m not really sure… but last night, after our fight with Ron, after I abandoned him and Hermione, I badly needed someone to hold onto, to feel that I wasn't alone, to close my eyes and cling to him and feel safer, even if only a little bit. Malfoy gave me all that, and more. He _kissed_ me, and though I didn’t expect that, it felt so _right... _I wasn’t surprised and didn’t question it. I just grabbed for him and held on for dear life. He made me warm again; he made the cold ebb away and turned the darkness safe and intimate.

Now, in the morning light, I am anxious. I don't regret what we've done, but I don't know how to face him. 

I am alone in my sleeping bag, and Malfoy is nowhere to be seen. Worried that he is not at the cave entrance, I grab my sweater off the floor, hastily pulling it on against the morning chill, and get up.

I head over to pick up the locket where I hang it last night and stop dead: the locket is not there. My heart gives a jolt, and I dash outside to find Malfoy. With his back to me, he is sitting cross-legged on the ground. His hair has grown long; soft curls fall on his neck but do not yet reach his shoulders. Sunlight gleams golden in the wavy strands, I've never noticed it before.

I want to say 'Hi' and... I forget what I want to say because I see Malfoy point his wand at the locket dangling off the chain in his hand.

Rage grips me. Rage so strong that I am suddenly afraid. I feel as though I'm not me, but someone else. I should stop and take a breath, because deep down I know I don't really mean it... after last night, Malfoy's warm touch and kisses still vivid in my mind, I can't possibly mean it... but the thought is drowned in the hot anger and nasty suspicion that poisons everything I felt towards him just a moment ago.

"Expelliarmus!" I bark, and Malfoy yelps.

My spell wrenches his wand out of his grip and slams it right into my palm.

"Pot-" he begins, his face bewildered, but I don't let him finish. I launch forward and grip the locket, wrenching the chain out of his grip.

When I finally put it on, I feel better having it on me again and at the same time, I feel even worse. Rage overcomes me; anger I haven't felt before. Well... I probably have – yesterday - when Ron told me that I have no family.

"Clever," I spit, as Malfoy gets on his feet. "To wait until I'm asleep and _steal_ from me."

He flinches. "I didn't!" His voice is bewildered. "I didn't steal it. I just wanted to take a look."

"At what?" I grip the locket and squeeze it in my palm. It's as cold as ever, though it feels strangely alive.

"At the _thing_ that drives you bonkers," Malfoy sneers, all the softness gone from his face, "the thing that turns you into a fucking _monster."_ He shakes his head.

"Shut up!" I shout, pointing my wand at him. "You, a fucking Death Eater!"

Malfoy flinches.

"You wear the Mark! You don't get to call _me_ a monster."

It sounds wrong. _Wrong, wrong, wrong._ I shouldn't be talking like this, I don't _really_ mean it. It's just that I'm scared of him. He couldn't possibly have done what he did to me last night without a motive. He's a Slytherin and Voldemort's pet. It was his plan. To get to me. To make me trust him and steal the locket. He wants to give it back to its master. But I won't let that happen. Never. Because it's _mine._ I am its master now.

"You are a _thief, _Ron was right. And a liar!" 

His face livid, Malfoy steps towards me.

"Last night you-"

He punches me in the face, and I taste blood. I didn't see it coming. The second blow crushes my throbbing lip again. I cry out in pain and cover my mouth. It gives him the advantage he needs. He launches forward and drags me down. We end up in a heap on the ground, both wands forgotten in the mud.

He punches me a few more times, I manage to kick him in the gut and tear out a bit of his _precious_ hair. Malfoy whines and curses and manages to flip me on my stomach, straddling my arse. He grips a fistful of my hair, wrenching my head back with such force that my neck cracks. I cry out in pain. With his free hand, Malfoy reaches under my chest and finds the locket; he wrenches at it until the chain snaps. He hurls it into the cave, and I hear it crash into the wall.

_"Fuck."_ Breathing heavily, Malfoy sits back on my arse and finally releases my hair. "Fuck." He repeats, sliding off me and getting on his feet. "You are barking mad."

All the fight goes out of me as I realise _what _has just happened. Shame and guilt fill me. Self-hatred. What have I done? What have I said to him? How can I look him in the eyes? 

He'll leave me now.

No.

_He’ll leave me now._

I am aware of him standing above me, but dare not look up. I curl on my side and breathe until I realise I'm crying.

"I'm sorry." I cover my face. "I'm so sorry, I didn't... _mean..._ that." I choke out between sobs. "It wasn't _me..._ it was..." I can't bring myself to say it.

"The locket," Malfoy says above me. It's not a question.

I nod. Though it's not the locket, it's what lives inside it; it has somehow wormed its way into my thoughts.

I'm shaking, I'm so cold. "Forgive me," I whisper.

He says nothing for a while, but then I feel his hand on my shoulder... and another hand strokes my hair, and then a weight presses on top. I open my eyes and realise he is leaning his head against mine, kneeling in front of me.

"Get up." He puts his arm around me, trying to pull me up. I obey, getting to my knees, and he wraps his arms around me.

"Don't leave me." My voice shakes as I press my forehead into his temple. "If _you_ leave, I..."

"Shhh..." He rocks me, and for a moment there is nothing but him shielding me from the world, his warmth, the pressure of his grip and the weight as he rests his head against mine. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Why?"

"Where would I go?" He holds me.

I let myself weep.

"Now, you are going to tell me everything about that fucking _thing,"_ he says above me.

He helps me to my feet and leads me by the hand into the cave. There he picks up the locket and tucks it into the inner pocket of my backpack. When he finally comes up to me, I'm leaning against the wall. I feel foul and dirty and cold. So cold.

"You're shivering," he frowns, "are you alright?"

The stupid question makes me smile. "No."

"You're cold."

"Yes." I feel feverish.

"Come here," he says and pulls me down.

He props his back against the cave wall and lets me snuggle between his thighs, using his chest for support. We sit in silence, and I let myself be coddled and held. I needed it so badly for so long.

"So," he says, “the locket."

**

"SEVEN?" I feel sick.

"Six out there," he says, "the seventh one is the remaining part that's still inside him. The two are already destroyed, four to go. Including the locket."

"And the remaining are?" I tighten my grip around his chest. He leans back into me, and I lean against the wall.

"Hell if I know."

"But Dumbledore..."

"Didn't tell me. He didn't know either."

"I thought... I thought that Dumbledore knew everything."

"I thought he did, too," he says quietly.

My stomach rumbles. "We should find food."

"We'd better not leave this place, the cave is safe enough."

He's right. We don't have a tent, and the cave is the best option available, but we haven't eaten anything since we left Weasley and Granger, so...

"We can mark it and return here later."

After dark, we creep down into the valley where several farmhouses are scattered between the low hills. The dogs sense our approach. They bark and snarl, and no doubt have awakened the entire household. There's very little room under the Cloak for the two of us. We slip into the hen house, but there are no eggs. As soon as we emerge outside, door slams and a man walks past. We still. He's gone to see to the dogs, and we hurry across the yard.

The kitchen door stands open. The room is lit with a soft yellow light from a lamp. There's a big chunk of cheese still wrapped in paper and a bottle of wine. The same thought strikes us both: we step into the kitchen, I grab the bottle and Potter the cheese; with his other hand, he grabs my wrist and Apparates us away.

...

"I think I used to be a better person... before all this, before the war." Potter takes a swig of the white wine and hands the bottle to me. "I never imagined I could steal something - just like that -" He breaks off a piece of cheese from the chunk "- and eat stolen food as though it were okay."

Eyeing him sideways, I take a sip from the bottle. Dry and crisp, the wine tastes nice and gets to my head quickly. Our situation seems less grim to me with every passing second.

"I'd never stolen anything in my whole life," I reply, reaching for cheese, "until I went camping with the _Golden Trio."_

It makes Potter laugh, though I'm not sure what exactly he finds so funny: me not being a thief, or the way I named him and his friends. Or it's probably just the wine. Either is good.

"How so?" He raises his eyebrows. “Your hen house debut…” 

"Unlike you, not because I was a better person." I shrug. "I never needed to. My family was disgustingly rich, and I had literally anything I wanted. There was no need to steal; all I had to do was ask my parents. So I really have no idea _why _Weasley thought it was natural that I was the best thief of us all. I'd never had any practice at it until that first chicken and eggs on the farm." I look up at him. For some reason, this talk makes me feel bad about myself. And even more so, it makes me look bad in front of him, and I hate it.

Potter laughs again, good-natured and a bit tipsy. "If anything, it should be me - a good thief. Dursleys never allowed me to have things; anything of mine, whatever possessions I might have had, were old shabby things my cousin no longer needed, and even so..." He stares into flames. "They never ceased to remind me that nothing I ever had was really mine. They even begrudged me food, so… I don't know how I didn’t grow up a criminal."

The glow of fire makes his face look different, softer, less gaunt, less hard than it usually is, than it has become. Something sharp stirs in my chest. A pity for the boy he is talking about: a small underfed child starved for affection, for things, for anything _his._

"Because you are a better person, have always been," I finally say, “better than I, and... _fuck,_ I had no idea about your childhood." I cannot imagine what he might have gone through before coming to Hogwarts. I suddenly remember how I used to mock his appearance, his broken glasses; how skinny he used to return every year after the summer break. I feel sick. “Fuck, they starved you, didn’t they? Fuck, Potter, I’m sorry… I used to joke about that, about your Muggle family, I had no idea…”

Potter looks at me, long and hard, and brings the bottle to his mouth. "You _are_ a better person _now,"_ he says. 

I roll my eyes. "How do you know?" I don't need empty words to cheer me up.

"I know," he repeats.

"Come on, what do you mean?"

"You wear the Dark Mark." He points at my arm. "Vo... You-Know-Who's Mark. You made a big mistake, yes."

I cringe.

"But now you do the right thing," he continues, "you make amends. You are a better person now than the You that took the Mark."

"You can't know that." I put on a sneer to conceal the tremor in my voice, the shame and self-hatred that flood me all over again. I bear the Mark, and it's never going to change.

"I know." Potter looks me in the eyes. "You went to Dumbledore, you switched sides; you saved me when I was corrupted by the Horcrux. All this time, you could have summoned You-Know-Who any moment, couldn't you? Hand me over and be rewarded... but you never did."

“I still might.” I protest. “How do you know I won’t?”

“You won’t.” He reaches out and covers my hand with his. He is very close, my heart leaps. I'm sure now he's going to kiss me. I stare down at our hands, waiting, _waiting..._ but the kiss never comes. He squeezes my hand and lets go. "Thank you."

“What for?”

“Not doing it.” He studies me through narrowed eyes.

I nod. I don't want his thanks. Right now I want... _something else,_ but he withdraws, and I don't know how to ask for it; I doubt I would even if I did. 

I get to my feet. "I'm going to bed... I mean, _into_ the sleeping bag."

We both laugh, covering the sound of my thudding heart. Potter nods but says nothing, staring into the flames. He doesn't even glance at me as I retreat into the cave.

Neither of us have spoken of what had happened last night since... well... since it had happened. Do I hope for it to happen again? Does _he_ want it? Did he mean it?

Probably not.

Was it the locket, or loneliness? Despair from losing his friends? Probably a bit of everything.

I watch him sitting by the fire with his back to the cave. I wish I could see his face, I wish I could know what he is thinking. He didn't wear the locket today. If it was only the locket last night... then that's what it was._ He didn’t wear the locket when he came to me._

When Potter suddenly gets on his feet, I start. He enters the cave and stops in front of me. I prop myself on my elbows and watch as he kicks off his boots and pulls his sweater and T-shirt over his head. They drop on the floor.

My heart is thudding.

He hesitates, then undoes his fly.

I stare.

He shoves his jeans and pants down, getting rid of them in one swift movement. He is hard.

I stop breathing.

I am so hard, too.

Without a word, he approaches my sleeping bag and slips inside, pressing himself whole against me.

"You are naked," he whispers. His breath smells of wine.

"Yes."

"Did you expect me _to?..."_ His lips touch my ear, and then his tongue. 

_Merlin_

"No." I slide my hand around his arse, turning to face him. "But I hoped." Yes, I did. Wine has made me bold. Not bold enough to outright proposition him by the fire, but still. "I undressed just in case."

Potter's quiet laugh is hot against my neck. "So this is the case." He licks under my jaw, and again. Wine has gotten to him, too.

He pulls back and takes his glasses off, putting them carefully down on the floor, then cups my face and kisses me.

**

I kiss him, and he melts against me, going pliant, kissing fervently back.

_Oh_

Never in my life did I think _that..._ I'm sure he never thought of it either. Of _this._ Between us. Like _this. _He tastes of wine, his mouth greedy, hungry for _me,_ and his _tongue… _Once Gin kissed me like that... But no. Not like that.

Not like _that._

I feel his hand on my arse, stroking, sliding back and forth, as his thigh slips between my legs. I don't really know what to do - I've never done this before - but I am bold with desire, or wine, or both, and it seems there aren't that many options but touch and kiss and _slide,_ and hold onto him for dear life.

His hand slides up my neck and into my hair, fingers caressing my scalp. "Your hair is long," he murmurs. "I like it."

"So is yours," I whisper between our kisses, "I like it."

I slide my palm down his stomach - down, down, his belly is smooth - until it touches coarse hair and hot flesh. 

He gasps.

I move my hand up and down, curling my fingers, encircling him with my palm. He jerks and thrusts into my grip, digging his nails into my arse.

"Good?" I kiss his shoulder and neck, and when he arches, I press my lips under his jaw.

"Yeah..." His breath uneven, he grinds against me. "Like that." He bucks his hips up and thrusts into my fist.

I look down to where my hand disappears beneath the sleeping bag, at its movement under the fabric. I want to _see. _Trying to shrug it off, I release his cock and yank the zipper down.

He grips his cock and strokes it, and… "AHHH!" And finally comes over my stomach; I stare as the swollen head moves in and out of his fist.

He kisses me, long and slow and clings, and then turns to drop flat on his stomach, breathing heavily. 

I kiss his nape and between his shoulder blades; I slide lower, pressing my lips down his spine, down to his lower back and all the way up again. He turns his head and reaches out to pull me into a kiss. My cock drags along the cleft of his arse; a gasp escapes me.

He bucks his hips up. "Yeah?"

"Yeah..." I exhale and _move_ again. "Fuck... yeah..."

"Come on." He moves, squeezing his arse cheeks.

I look down and move back and forth, again and again, watching as my cock slides along the cleft of his arse. 

_Fuck_

The glow of the fire outside makes golden flickers dance on his skin. Here we are - our shadows - intertwined on the wall, moving, _moving,_ never still. I kiss his shoulder and rest my forehead on his nape, moving, _moving_ above him, the sweet slide of my cock along his cleft driving me mad. His whole body is pressed flush beneath me, and it feels as though I'm moving _inside,_ as though we are one, and I can't tell where one of us begins and the other ends. His hand on my thigh presses me firmly into him.

"Come, Harry," he says.

And I do. My cock throbs, sweetness bursts in my body, and my come smears on his back. I lie on top of him and feel him _whole._ He turns his head and kisses me, languid and slow, his quiet laugh blooming between our lips.

"What?" I roll off him and spoon him, wrapping my arm around his chest

"Have you done this before?" His fingertips trace my forearm.

"Yes," I reply, "last night."

Eyes wide in disbelief, he turns to me. I don't know why he is surprised. Well, it's true. Last night with him was my first time ever, and _this_ has just been my second.

"No, I mean... I don’t mean like _this..._ with a guy." Draco lays his head back, snuggling into me. "You had a girlfriend, surely you..."

"No, we'd never... it hadn't come to that." His hair is in my face, I blow it out. "Last night - with _you -_ was my first time. The very first."

Draco doesn't reply for a while. "Mine too," he finally says.

_What?_

"I thought... _No,_ you're kidding."

"You thought I'd had it plenty?" He laughs. "Thought of it often, did you?"

"I didn't think of it at all!" I bite at his shoulder, and he hisses but doesn’t pull away.

"But..." I kiss behind his ear, making him shiver.

"But what?" He turns his head to look at me.

"But you do give that impression."

He kisses me.

**

_How do we keep this this?_

_How do we keep this bliss?_

_How do we?_

_How do we stay this close?_

_I don't want to let go_

_How do we?_

_Keep it just like this_

_Keep it just like this_

_Keep it just like this_

_Keep it just like this_

_[Troye Sivan, ‘This, this’]_

"Well?" 

"Stay still," he says, fumbling with my hair. "Okay."

I turn.

"Good." He nods.

"Do you like it?" I ask, gingerly touching the tiny unruly ponytail he's tied in my hair with a hairband he transfigured from the grass stem.

It's not really a 'ponytail', more like a little bun, my hair, though grown longish, is still too short to be properly tied. A few strands escape and fall on my face.

"I like it," Draco says, "now me." He hands me the hairband and turns around.

I tuck the band between my teeth and card my fingers through his hair. Wavy and thick, it is a bit longer than mine. I like the way the sunlight brings out the gold in it. I smooth it back from his forehead and temples, gathering it up from his nape into a tiny ponytail and tie it with a band. 

"Ouch!" 

"Sorry," I murmur. My fingers are clumsy, and a strand already falls back on his face. "Done."

He turns to me. This way it brings out his smooth forehead, his sharp jaw and shaped cheekbones. His slender nose is a bit hooked and stands out; it suits him. It gives his face a severe look, though softened with the stubborn fair strands across his eyes. 

He is beautiful.

"Don't I look like my father?" 

"No."

No, he doesn't. He doesn't look like Lucius. He is all his mother. I remember Narcissa's arrogant, chiselled face.

"You _do_ look arrogant, though. But not like your father." I reach out and tuck the strand behind his ear. In no time it will fall on his face again. "I like it."

"Do you?" He steps closer.

"Yes." I take his face in my palms and kiss him. 

It feels so good - to be allowed to kiss him now, like this. It's been about two weeks or more; at some point, I've ceased to count the days.

We stay in the cave; we wander around with no aim or purpose. Hungry most of the time. After that first ‘raid’ to the farm, we are rarely successful in finding food. The weather is cold, but we are not. We are together against the cold, lost in the woods and each other... and I’m not sure if I care to be found. My life - the other life - seems so far away. The one where I had to fight and fight and never have a rest. Maybe it would be better to keep it just like this till the end of time? To let it go and just live? I wonder if Draco feels the same. He probably does. I never ask, what would I do if he said no? He's the only one I have, the only one who is still here for me. I can't lose him.

We never talk about it, we just... We're here, together, like this; it seems enough. And we have sex, of course. Plenty.

Last night, he let me... well... he allowed me _everything._

I am still not sure if it was alright. I fucked it up, I hurt him. I did. But he insisted, urging me on, whispering that he wanted me _whole._ He wanted to _feel._ To feel me inside.

"Go on... go _on."_ He writhed beneath me and wrapped his legs around my back. "Just..." He gripped my hand. "Go on."

So I did. He cried out and crushed my fingers in his grip. "No, no... _don't stop."_

"I'm hurting you." My pulse pounded in my ears.

"Yes." He shifted beneath me. "I want you inside. _Do it, damn you."_

I did. I pushed and pressed on, and finally... I was _there._

His whole body was trembling. "Yes."

"Draco, I..." I desperately wanted to move, to thrust, to go wild on him. He shut me up with a kiss, squeezing his thighs around me. I tore my lips away. "Draco, I..." 

"Shut up and _do it."_ He splayed his palms over my arse. 

So I did. I did it. I moved, watching as he winced, as he bit his lip, as his face crumpled, his eyes squeezed shut, nodding, nodding for me to go on. Everything was so hot and tight that I could barely move at all. I did it slowly, as slowly as I could. Not that it helped me hold myself back.

He threw his head back, and his breath hitched - in pain or pleasure, I couldn't be sure. No, in pain. _In pain._ I couldn't think at all, because my cock throbbed deep inside his body, and I came, hard, and for a moment forgot about everything, even about him beneath me. We went still... Until he shifted and turned his head. I moved to pull out, but he pressed his palm into my arse. "No. Stay still. I want to feel you."

So we lay, our legs tangled. I kissed his face all over. I felt sated and happy and guilty - all at once. "I hurt you."

"You did." He stroked my hair. "It's okay, I asked you to."

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't..."

"I wanted to _feel you_," he said and shifted beneath me to look between us, “inside.” I still hadn't pulled out. "And you are inside." He reached down and touched his cock - half-hard, resting against his belly.

"Let me." I propped myself on my elbow. I took his cock and began to stroke it, and in no time it was stiff again. Astonished, I felt myself harden inside him. Carefully, I moved my hips. Slowly, as slow as I could. "May I?"

"Yes." He lay back. "Slowly."

I rocked and moved my hand and rocked. His breath grew laboured. I didn't see his face, only the line of his tilted up jaw.

"Yes?" I moved my hand faster.

"Yes." He batted it away and gripped his cock. "Come on."

I thrust, the slide of my cock was slick with my come.

He stroked himself. "Ahhh..."

Slowly, oh-so-slowly, gingerly I moved and moved and moved, on and on, until his body clenched as he cried out and came. I watched white strips covering his stomach in bouts until his hand stilled and he went boneless. Carefully, I pulled out. He curled on his side and looked at me. 

"You alright?" I lay face-to-face with him.

"Yes." He took my hand.

I knew then, that what had just happened was more than our pleasure, more than what I thought at first it was. For me it was more.

I didn't ask him.

"Draco, I'm _sorry,"_ I said first thing this morning, watching as he limped back into the cave after he'd pissed outside.

He just rolled his eyes and came up to lie on his side next to me.

"I think..." He brushed away a strand of hair from my face. "You could try to wear it tied." I liked the idea. It was more than just hair, it was... something _ours,_ something between us. I thought he probably felt it, too.

For these past two weeks, I haven't touched the locket even once.

**

_Something’s wrong 'bout to keep in on top_

_Nothing’s wrong 'cause we know when to stop_

_[Troye Sivan, ‘This, this’]_

I start awake at dawn. It's as though someone has shaken me by the shoulder. _Wake up, get up._

Harry is asleep next to me, his quiet breathing steady. I watch his face. It's smooth and calm. Asleep. I want to plant a kiss on his brow, _when..._

There's _something_ in the air, it calls to me. I look around the cave and my gaze lands on Harry's backpack in the corner.

I get on my feet.

_‘... Draco...’_

I approach and squat beside it. No, I'm imagining things. I know the _thing_ is there, but no. It is absolutely _not_ talking to me. I unzip the backpack and reach into its inner pocket. I'd put it there myself, and Harry hasn't touched it since. It's cold and smooth, snug in my palm, it feels _so... _My fingers close around the locket as I withdraw my hand out of the backpack to peer at it. It's beautiful: a dull gleam of gold and the dainty Slytherin _'S'._ So smooth to the touch. _Exquisite._ Mesmerised, I trace the lid when the chain weaves around my hand. It slithers through my fingers, gleaming faintly in the dim light until it _cuts_ into my skin. It's coldness stings, and I try to shake it off, but the chain weaves around my wrist, clinging, _caressing..._

_‘... Draco...’_

It wants me to put it on, I realise. I probably shouldn't. I’d better not. The thing is vile, the thing is dangerous… But it’s so beautiful. It’s just a locket… a pretty thing… I glance at Harry over my shoulder. What harm would be in that? He doesn't need to know. I shake the chain out of my fingers and take it with both hands, pulling it over my head.

The locket rests against my chest and _sighs..._ clings right to my heart and _sighs_ again - a sound, a gasp of lust and pleasure – do I myself make it?

_No, it's Harry._

He is above me, the cords in his neck straining as he _thrusts,_ again and again, filling me to the brim. His face contorts as he looks down at me. It's not him... Well, it is, but it's not. He is not himself. I am suddenly scared.

"No, stop," I say weakly, _"Stop it,_ you are hurting me."

He doesn't stop, his smile vicious, he thrusts harder, sending a sharp pain through my very core. 

"No. You wanted to _feel." _His eyes burn bright. _"Feel."_

No, all this is wrong. It was never like this, he was never like this; he is _not._ Harry is good, _my_ Harry is gentle, he would never hurt me, he...

_‘... Oh, but he did...’_

He didn't! He didn't want to! I asked him to, I wanted it, I wanted to _feel._

_‘... He is not yours...’_

_‘... Not your Harry...’_

Whose voice is that? I look around, my head swims.

_‘... You know whose...’_

_‘... You-Know-Who...’_

No. No, this can’t be. But the _voice..._ I know that voice.

_‘... Your Master’s voice...’_

_‘... Your Master, Draco...’_

_‘... You bear my Mark...’_

It's not real. I shake my head. He is not my master. And Harry is here, I only have to wake him.

_‘... He doesn’t care for you...’_

_‘... He doesn’t...’_

_‘... Doesn’t-doesn’t-doesn’t...’_

The echo is deafening around the cave. I press my hands to my ears, but the _voice_ speaks inside my head.

_‘... He is using you...’_

_‘... He fucks you...’_

_‘... It is the only thing you are good for...’_

_‘... This is all it is...’_

_‘...This is all it is - this is all it is - this is all it is...’_

_‘... You are a fool...’_

_‘... Fool-fool-fool...’_

_‘... He fucks you, but he doesn’t give a fuck...’_

_‘...Doesn’t give a fuck - doesn’t give a fuck - doesn’t give a fuck...’_

_‘... Fuck-fuck-fuck...’_

_‘... He’ll leave you as soon as he can...’_

_‘... He can – he can – he can...’_

_‘... You are nothing to him, nothing...’_

_‘....Nothing - nothing - nothing...’_

_‘... Nothing but a Death Eater...’_

_‘...Death Eater - Death Eater - Death Eater...’_

"No!" I shout. "No! I am not!"

_"You are."_ Harry stands next to me with his wand drawn. _"You wear the Mark."_

_‘... You do, Draco...’_

_‘... You do – you do – you do...’_

_‘... My Mark – Mark - Mark...’_

The locket pulses to my heartbeat.

_"I'm going to kill you."_ Harry steps closer. _"You are dead anyway."_

"No, you'd never use an Unforgivable," I say weakly, "not _you." _I don't like his smile.

_"Sectumsempra,"_ he says, _"is NOT Unforgivable, you see."_

Horror grips me, I fall on my knees.

_"That's the point, Malfoy. This is why they didn't punish me at Hogwarts. If you’d Crucioed me in that bathroom, you'd go to Azkaban, Dumbledore told me."_ There's a glint of red in his bright green eyes. _"But Sectumsempra is not Unforgivable and it still kills you. You just bleed and bleed... bleed until nothing's left."_ He raises his wand. _"I used it before, remember?"_

_‘... He used it before, he did...’_

_‘.... He did – he did – he did...’_

_"Sectumsempra,"_ he says gently, and I watch in horror as bloody gashes open in my chest.

_"Sectumsempra,"_ he whispers lovingly, very, very close to me. 

I cover my bleeding face and scream.

And scream

and scream

and _SCREAM_

His hands try to reach my throat, I bat them away. He grips my wrist and reaches under the collar of my T-shirt, tugging, _tugging,_ wrenching until it hurts, until it cuts into my neck, until something _snaps._ He wrenches the chain off my neck and hurls the locket into the far corner.

"Shhh..." he tries to put his arms around me, but I recoil, backing away, springing on my feet.

"Don’t touch me!"

"Draco." He reaches out with his hand. "Draco, look at me." He takes a step forward. I step back. "It's me. It's Harry." He takes another step. 

I take a step back. I am shaking.

"Draco, it's _not_ true.” He raises his open palms. “Whatever it's told you - it's not true!"

I step back and bump into the wall. I am not bleeding, and my chest is whole, and he is standing wandless before me, but... I look at the locket in the corner. A thing so small and innocent. It couldn't have possibly _told_ me all that. It can't even talk, it’s the _locket,_ it’s just... just a piece of jewellery, a thing. 

Whatever may have come to my head must have been true. It has been staring me in the face. It’s just… I was too much of a coward to realise it.

"It _lies_ to you all the time." He is in front of me, and I don't have anywhere to retreat. "It lied to me. All the time. It was you who saved me from it." Harry puts his hands on my shoulders. "Whatever it has told you, is a _lie." _He kisses my forehead.

I weep. I want so desperately to believe him.

He wraps his arms around me and strokes my hair and presses gentle lips to my temple. "Draco, my Draco," he repeats, "my..." 

I grab fistfuls of the T-shirt on his back and hold on for dear life.

If he stayed with me only because he fucked me, as this _thing_ had said, he wouldn't have behaved like that, be all _that_ for me. He wouldn't, I think. He wouldn't. 

_Would he?_

"Harry." I slide my arms around him.

**

"I want to visit Godric's Hollow," Harry says one night out of the blue, waking me up.

I turn in his arms. "Why?"

We've cast warming spells around the cave and huddled together fully dressed in our sleeping bag. It's still cold. Fucking winter has come.

"My parents are buried there, you know." He snuggles closer. "And I have this thought that... Dumbledore hid it there."

"What?"

"The sword of Gryffindor. We need it to destroy the locket and the other Horcruxes."

Chills spread to my bones every time I think that there are still _three_ more of them apart from the one vile thing in our possession.

"Why do you think so?"

"Dumbledore lived in Godric's Hollow. He might have hidden it there."

"Well, considering it's Gryffindor's birthplace... maybe there's something there. Maybe you are right. It would be symbolic."

Harry props himself up on his elbow. "What do you mean?"

"What?"

"About Gryffindor's birthplace?"

"Well, it's quite literally his birthplace, meaning Gryffindor was _born_ there," I say. "Like, why do you think it's called Godric's Hollow?"

"Are you _sure?!"_

I want to laugh; sometimes I forget how ignorant of Wizarding history he'd grown up. "It's common knowledge." I shrug.

"We should go there!" He sits up and falls back with a grunt, as the fabric of the sleeping bag yanks him back.

I don't think I like this idea of his. "But where would you look for the sword? Godric's Hollow is a _town._ Not a spot."

"We could go to the place where Gryffindor lived, or Dumbledore, we could try!" He is agitated, and I see he already believes the sword is there, waiting for him. "If anything, I'd go to visit my parents' graves." He looks at me.

"I don't know, maybe you're right." I don't know why, but I suddenly have a bad feeling. "But wouldn't it be too dangerous? If we are seen, if _you_ are seen there..."

"You don't have to go," he says quietly, and my heart drops, "you may stay here and wait for me." He squeezes my hand.

"No. I'll go with you."

"Will you?"

_Of course, I will. There's no other choice for me. Not anymore. I'd follow you anywhere._ "Yes."

If we get caught or killed, at least we'll be together.

**

"You were right," he repeats over and over, his voice shrill, "I'm so sorry, you were right. I should have listened to you." Kneeling on the frozen ground, he rocks back and forth.

"Protego Totalum, Muffliato, Repellum Muggletum, Celario!" I run around, casting protective spells. Harry is shaking all over.

Done with the spells, I dash to him and wrench at his sleeve, tugging it up to the elbow. There, on the inside of his wrist, two identical marks burn angry red against the tender skin.

_Fuck_

Panic grips me.

_Shit, shit, shit_

"It bit me," he whispers, his eyes already glassy and bright with fever, “it bit me.”

"I know." I look around and grab his backpack, emptying its contents onto the ground.

"I'm going to die," Harry mumbles, staring at the bite marks.

"If he intended to kill you..." I rummage frantically through the heap of things, my fingers brush the locket, I snatch my hand away. "You would already be dead." I say it as confidently as I can. I want to believe it. Though it only takes remembering the monstrous snake to realise how feeble a hope it is. "You said you had a bezoar, _where_ is it?"

"I... I don't know." Harry's gaze is vacant as he looks around.

I grip him by the shoulders and shake him. "Harry, _where is it?!_ Quickly!"

"I think..." He shrugs, and there's this dreamy note about his voice. Terror grips me. "Maybe in the pouch... _maybe?"_

_Oh fuck, the pouch_

I reach for the string around his neck and tug the tiny leather pouch from under his sweater. "Accio bezoar!" A spongy yellow stone slams into my palm.

I push Harry down on the ground and draw my wand. I hardly know what I'm doing, but I hope it's not too late. With a cutting spell, I slice the skin open over the bite. He screams, trying to wriggle his arm out of my grip.

"Sorry, Harry, I'm sorry." My voice shakes. "Petrificus Totalus."

He goes still and rigid. This is all I need. I bring his bleeding wrist to my mouth and suck, and spit, and _suck,_ and _spit,_ suck and spit, again and again; the patch of snow before me turns pink. I don't know if that's enough, or if I'm doing it right. I bite off a tiny chunk of the bezoar and hold it in my mouth, trying not to gag as the chalky gluey substance spreads down my throat. I spit it into the wound, smearing it with my thumb, and shove the rest of the stone into his mouth, waiting for a few moments before casting Ennervate.

Harry coughs. I press my palm to his mouth and help him sit up. "Keep your mouth closed. I've put bezoar there, so hold it. Swallow as it dissolves."

Harry nods, and I finally remove my hand. He raises his wrist to look at it, and I see the bite marks have disappeared, skin already knitting closed with only a hint of redness and a thin scar in the place where my spell cut it. He points at his mouth, as though asking how long should he hold it.

Hell if I know. "Until it fully dissolves, I suppose." I peer at his face, looking for signs of fever, but can see none.

"It's gone," he finally says in about a half an hour. "The bezoar."

I look at him. "How do you feel?"

"I'm good, _Doctor."_ He grins.

"Fuck, you scared me." I wince. "You idiot."

"I'm sorry. I should've listened to you when you didn't want to go there." He shuffles towards me on his knees. "I almost got us killed."

"The snake..." A sudden thought strikes me. I go cold. "Did it see me? Did _he_ see me through the snake?"

"No, he didn't." Harry shakes his head. "I saw his mind, just before he was almost upon us. The snake was focused entirely on me, it was never aware you were there, too."

"Good." I exhale. I'm so tired. "Otherwise... my Mother... you know-" I want to cry, and I'm not ashamed to cry in front of him, not anymore. But somehow I can't. It feels as though I don't have any tears left.

"I know," he says and pulls me close to rest his head against mine. "Thank you."

"No problem." I shrug, as though he was thanking me for a spare apple or... something silly.

I laugh. That's when hysteria hits me.

**

_Ties can tangle up and become knots_

_Gotta work so that we don't get caught_

_Alright, alright_

_And I will take myself to the front line_

_I don't care if it's taking all night_

_It's alright, it's alright_

_[Troye Sivan, ‘This, this’]_

I think I hear voices outside, or probably just dreamed them up.

"Harry!"

My heart gives a jolt.

"... your voice down."

I bolt upright.

Harry stirs beside me. I shake him by the shoulder.

"... mistaken anyway."

"... give it a try."

We stare at each other.

_No,_ I think. 

_There’s no one here._

_Go away. _

_Leave us be._

I grab Harry's hand, but he lets go and springs on his feet, dashing outside.

_No._ I stare at his back. I could still probably cast a Full-Body Bind on him and keep him here. 

Keep him _with me._

"Ron!"

"Harry!"

"Harry!"

_Too late._

"Hermione!"

I get to my feet.

From here I see as Granger jumps at him and he catches her in his arms. I see his face - grimaced - as though he fights back tears. 

Slowly I approach the entrance to the cave.

He presses himself to Granger and rocks her on the spot, his face full of her bushy hair, then pulls back and looks around.

"Ron."

His eyes lowered, Weasley stands to the side, a huge sword dangling from his hand.

"Ron," Harry repeats, and Weasley looks up.

His face uncertain, he nods awkwardly and shrugs, as though saying: _'Here I am, make of me what you will.'_

Harry reaches out with his hand and beckons to him.

Weasley drops the sword on the ground where it clatters with a steel heavy sound and launches, the three of them now intertwined in the embrace.

The trio.

Harry sobs, and so does Granger. 

_"Mate."_ Weasley clings to him.

_The Trio._

I am not one of them.

I want to step back into the cave, but Weasley looks up and flinches. _"Malfoy?"_

The three of them stare at me.

The _two_ of them stare. And the _third one_ looks back and forth between his friends and then finally meets my eyes.

My heart drops.

It's over. _Now it's over._

We are no more.

My hands curl into fists. I tuck them under my armpits and cross my arms on my chest.

"I thought," Weasley says, releasing Harry, "that you-"

"That I had fucked off and give posh tea-parties at the Manor." I step outside. "But no, here I am, still stealing chickens." I head to the remnants of the half-burnt logs from last night and point my wand at them to start a fire. I hope Harry will say something, but he is silent, and I will _not_ be the one to say it. Absolutely not. I turn my back to them and squat by the fire.

It's Granger who speaks. "We found the sword of Gryffindor."

I look over my shoulder. The huge thing lies where Weasley has dropped it. 

"Where?" Harry asks.

"It's a long story," Weasley begins, "we were camping in the Forest of Dean - so Hermione told me -" He heads to the sword and picks it up. I turn to face them and sit cross-legged on the ground.

"One night, I was sitting on watch, when a Patronus appeared. At first, I thought it was yours, Harry, you know, it looked a bit similar. But then I realised it wasn't a Stag, it lacked the antlers. So I woke Hermione up, and we followed it. It led us up to a frozen pond and disappeared. And there it was: the sword at the very bottom. So we retrieved it, and here we are." He raises the sword. 

It looks very heavy and sharp, its wide blade reflecting the sunlight. 

"Whose Patronus it was?"

"No idea! Absolutely no idea, mate."

"But how did you find us?" Harry finally glances at me.

"Oh, it's a super weird story, mate. Last night, I was playing with my Deluminator, and I heard a voice - _your_ voice - calling my name. It had said: _'Ron,'_ and when I clicked it, a..." Weasley shrugs. "It sounds crazy, I know, but..."

"A glowing globe appeared," Granger continues, "and entered Ron's chest." She gives Harry a look. "Yes, entered his chest. Don't ask how, I don't know. It just did. So Ron said, he felt as though he knew where you might be: we just needed to Apparate, and the sphere would bring us wherever you were. So we did. He Apparated and pulled me along, and we landed here among the hills. We've been wandering for a while, and I thought it was pointless until you appeared."

_Why oh why did I wake him up?_ I curse myself.

Face bewildered, Harry turns to me. _Fucking finally._ "Yes, I... did say Ron's name last night." He is embarrassed. "Draco wondered what you two were doing out there, and I said that..." He hesitates. "I replied that now you wouldn’t probably accept me back, after... well..." He stares at the ground. "After the things I'd told Ron. That's when I said your name and you heard me, I suppose."

Weasley clears his throat and turns to Granger.

_'Draco?'_ She mouths at him.

He shrugs and glances at me. I don't look away.

"So we have the sword now," Weasley says, "where's the Horcrux?"

"Ron!" Granger nods in my direction.

"It's okay, he knows," Harry says, "I told him about the Horcruxes."

"You _told_ him, Harry?" Weasley says in disbelief.

"Yes, I did, and it's _done."_ Harry's face is stubborn.

"So now you must kill me along with the Horcrux so that your secret dies with me." I wiggle my eyebrows at Weasley.

"For _fuck’s sake,_ don't start that." Harry makes a face. "Accio backpack!"

The backpack flies out of the cave and slands at his feet. Harry unzips it and reaches inside, retrieving the locket by its chain. He holds it at arm's length, disgust written across his face. Since the night I tried it on like an idiot, neither of us have touched it.

"We... I couldn't wear it anymore," he doesn’t meet their eyes, "so I kept it tucked away. And still... it attacked me and... Draco, too."

"Attacked how?" Granger frowns.

"You don't want to know," I reply. I don't want to remember either.

"Okay, now." Harry puts the locket down on the ground. "I am going to open it, and you're gonna stab it with the sword, Ron."

"Me? Why _me?"_ Weasley asks.

I spring on my feet. "How are you going to _open_ it?" A chill spreads in my stomach.

"I'm going to speak to it in Parseltongue." Harry turns to me. "Draco, come here. Stand behind me. You too, Hermione."

"Why _me?"_ Weasley repeats, the sword dangling from his hand.

"You found the sword, you are the one to kill the _thing."_

I walk towards Harry. "How do you know it will open to you?"

"I did it before." Harry grabs my arm and pulls me behind him. "Hermione!" 

"You _opened_ it before?" I stare at him.

"No, I opened the Chamber of Secrets." Harry pulls Granger behind his back. "It's basically the same, I reckon. It's a Slytherin locket. Stay where you are. Ron, on the count of three! Be ready. As soon as it opens _stab_ it, don't wait; it may speak to you – _don’t listen._ Kill it. Just _kill it._ Ready?"

His face grim, Weasley draws the sword with both hands and nods. "Come on."

Granger and I draw our wands behind Harry's back.

"One, two, three!" Harry counts, and...

_"Siiiiaaaahhhhaaaassssaaashhaaaiiiii."_

The awful, _vile_ hissing sound he suddenly makes sends chills through my bones. Silence falls, only disturbed by a faint mechanical ticking coming from the locket.

_Tick - tick - tick - tick - tick_

I brace myself, and Granger near me suddenly grips my sleeve. I shrug her off, I need my wand hand ready.

_Snap!_

The lid opens, and the _thing_ rises in the air. A shape. A mass of swirling darkness, shifting, rippling with red and green.

_"I have seen your heart and it is mine. I have seen your dreams, Ronald Weasley, and I have seen your fears..."[6]_

"Ron! Don't listen to it!" Harry shouts.

_"Least loved by the mother who craved a daughter. Least loved by the girl who prefers your friend..."_

I feel weak and clammy; this is the voice that spoke to me; this is the voice that knows me. Knows everything, sees everything. My hands are shaking.

"Ron! Stab it!" Harry steps forward.

"No!" I try to grab his shoulder. "Harry, no!" But he is out of my reach.

A glowing figure appears out of the swirling mass. _Harry._

Paralised, I can't breathe.

_"We were better without you, happier without you,"_ it moves towards Weasley, and Harry moves in its wake.

"Harry!" Granger shrieks.

The second figure appears near the Horcrux-Harry. It's... it's _Granger._

_"Who could look at you beside Harry Potter? What are you, compared to the Chosen One...?"_

"Ron! It lies! Stab it! STAB IT!" Harry shouts.

_"Your mother confessed that she would have preferred me as a son,"_ the Horcrux-Harry hisses.

The Horcrux-Granger snakes her arm around his waist. _"Who wouldn't prefer him? What woman would take you? You are nothing... nothing... nothing... compared to him... compared to him."_

Weasley's face is contorted, the sword still poised in his hands. But he _listens._ And watches, and... _oh fuck..._The two shapes start kissing in the fog. _'Granger'_ attacking _'Harry’s'_ lips, his response is no less fierce. Shock is written across Weasley's face, shock and... something else. His head turns to Harry - to the _real_ Harry - a trace of scarlet glints in his eyes. He raises his sword.

"Ron! No!" Granger's shriek rings in my ears.

I bolt out.

I pounce forward and shove Harry aside with all my might, away from the line of Weasley's sword. Harry stumbles and falls, while the sword hits the frozen rocky ground with a loud metallic _clink!_ in the place where Harry has just stood.

I point my wand at Weasley. 

"Draco, no!" At the edge of my vision, Harry gets on his feet.

"Stab the _locket,_ Weasley!" I order. The wand in my hand shakes. "The _locket!"_

_"Draco... Draco Malfoy..." _The sound of the _voice_ behind my back paralyses me. 

_"Look at me."_

I don't want to. I won't. Anything but looking at...

_"Draco,"_ he repeats softly, _"look at me."_

With the immense effort of my will, I turn around. I know. I _know_ what I will see there. Whom I will see. I don't want to. Still, I turn. I have no choice.

There he is. Eyes luminous-green on the face I know better than my own. On the face I lov...

Harry reaches out with his hand. It's not Harry. He is not. And yet, he is. He is so beautiful. _"Come, Draco..."_

_Come, Draco,_ echoes inside my head, and the image of Harry's face above me in the flickering shadows of the cave - _our_ cave - appears vivid.

_Come, Draco,_ he said and kissed me, _I want to see you come._

And I came, came so hard I forgot myself. That was the night I felt him inside me for the first time.

_"Come and see..."_

My legs unsteady, I step forward.

"Draco! No!" I hear somewhere from my left. Harry's voice, but it's wane and bleak and can't compare to... The shape shifts and there are two figures before me where there has just stood one. Harry snakes his arms around him and pulls him close, cups his face and kisses him... Kisses the one that is... _me._ I watch us kissing, urgent and greedy, Harry devouring my lips.

"Holy shit," Weasley says somewhere.

_'Me'_ in Harry's arms shifts, turning into someone else... Waist-long hair, feminine curves, she is much shorter than him, and he lifts her off the ground. She wraps her legs around his hips. She is... she is his girlfriend. Weasley's sister. I can't breathe. Her bare breasts press against his chest, and he bends down to kiss them. She arches into his touch, her hair flowing to the ground...

_"Look, Draco. Take a good look..."_

I shake my head.

No.

_"Look and see what’s been staring you in the face..."_

"Ron!" Someone says... or whispers... I don't know...

_"He doesn’t want you, not really... He doesn’t mean it..."_

"No, please," someone cries. It's probably me, I don't know.

_"He kissed you, made love to you, but not really... Every time he is with you, he thinks of her, imagines her in your place..."_

He does. Of course, he does.

_"You know it, Draco, you are not a fool..."_

I know it. I knew it all along.

_"Fool – fool – fool..."_

I fall on my knees, the world blurs in my tears.

_"You don’t deserve to be loved and wanted... You don’t deserve him... Don’t deserve Harry Potter..."_

I press my palms into my ears, but the voice rings in my head.

_"No one wants you, even your parents... You betrayed their Lord... In vain... In vain... But the Dark Lord still wants you... He would accept you back... He’s the only one who would..._

_...The Dark Lord..._

_...The Dark Lord..._

_...The Dar-...AAAAAAAAA!!!!!"_

Insane shriek fills the air, the wail of terror and pain and anger. When it finally dies down, the voice says no more.

I come to my senses sprawled on the ground.

"Malfoy." Weasley's hand swims into view.

I look up. He looms over me, his bewildered face streaked with tears. I take his hand and let him help me on my feet. "Thank you." I let go of his hand and look around. "Did you?.."

"Yes." The disfigured locket lies on the ground and the sword of Gryffindor gleams near it. Weasley pulls the thing up by its chain. "It's gone. It's empty." He wipes his eyes.

Granger steps next to him and places her hand on his shoulder. "Ron..."

He looks down at her, long and hard, and finally pulls her close. "It's okay." He kisses her temple. With a sigh, she leans into him.

All along, I am aware of Harry. Aware as he shifts and tries to say something, and fails. I don't look at him, I won’t. I don't look away from Granger and Weasley.

"Draco." He is suddenly beside me. I don't know how I’ve missed his approach. I've been waiting, craving for exactly that.

"Everything the Horcrux told you... you know it's a lie." 

I nod. I know.

But do I?

_Do I?_

I finally look at him. His face determined, he reaches out and tries to pull me closer. I resist and step back. We are not alone, his friends are watching. I'm not sure he really means it.

"Harry?" Granger breaks the silence. "What the Horcrux said..."

Weasley meets my eyes and stares, as though seeing me for the first time.

"Is true." Harry turns to her.

"But you've just said it's a lie." Bewildered, Weasley looks between me and Harry.

"The part that I don't... _care -_ is a lie." Harry grimaces. "The rest is true." He grabs my hand. This time I'm not swift enough to withdraw.

"You mean..." Weasley's eyes grow round as saucers when realisation finally hits him. "Bloody hell, Harry!" He says, scandalised. "But _how?.."_

_"Ron."_ Granger jabs him in the ribs. 

"Okay, I'd better go lie down." Weasley shakes his head. "Destroying the Horcrux and all that has... you know... tired me out."

He summons the tent out of Granger's beaded bag and sets to unfolding it.

**

"He saved my life, guys."

"Look, mate, I'm so sorry, I don't know what possessed me, I... It wasn’t me, it-"

"I'm not talking about today, Ron... though that, too. He healed me after Nagini bit me in Bathilda Bagshot's house."

"How?" Granger asks in disbelief.

"The bezoar and... I was in a haze, can't tell the details. He did something to the wound and sucked the venom out, and healed it afterwards."

"_Sucked_ the venom out?" Weasley says faintly. _"Nagini’s_ venom?"

"Yes, sucked the venom out," Harry repeats, "with his own mouth, yes, if you know what that means. He risked his own life for me."

"Okay, good, I'm..." Weasley mumbles defensively. "I admit I must’ve been mistaken about him."

"But Harry, you were cheating on Ginny-" Granger begins.

"I wasn't. We broke up on the day of Dumbledore's funeral."

"I know that, you told us. I mean... you didn't _really_ break up, did you? You only said so to keep her safe. You both knew that. She's still waiting for you, I'm sure."

"I don't think I'll be returning to her," Harry says quietly, "either way, I don't think I will. I never promised that I’d come back."

"But Malfoy's a _guy,"_ Weasley adds, "and it's not like I'm bigoted or anything, but still..."

"Still what?"

"You know... what people may say?... All that stuff."

"Ron... there's a madman on a hunt for me out there, with half of Wizarding Britain at his command," Harry says tiredly. "The other half expects me to save the world, and I have no clue what I'm doing. I may get myself killed any day. Do you think, in the middle of all this, I should give a fuck what people may say when they learn I'm in love with a _guy?"_

_I'm in love with a guy,_ he said.

_I'm in love,_ he said.

_I’m in love_.

My poor heart pounding, I lay still in my bunk, staring at Harry's back by the tent's open flap. I see as Granger across from him shakes her head and leans into Weasley. Weasley shrugs and says no more. The three of them sit by the fire well into the night. 

I wake up in the darkness at a touch to my shoulder. The bunk dips under his weight. It's narrow, and there's not enough room for two. Harry manages to fit himself on his side behind me anyway. 

"What are you doing?" I look over my shoulder.

He kisses my nose. "Nothing. Go back to sleep." He presses himself to my back and wraps his arm around my chest.

I go back to sleep.

**

"It's weird," Granger says, "this sign here." She points at the book in front of her. "It's not a rune, it doesn't belong."

"Hang on..." Harry peers over her shoulder. "I saw it... elsewhere... _hang on..."_ He sits down at the table across from her. 

"Luna's father wore it at the wedding, and also - _yes_ \- it was carved at that ancient grave, in Godric's Hollow. The Peverells. Draco, come have a look."

I stand up from the armchair and approach to peer over his shoulder. There is a small triangle drawn on the page's top corner. A triangle with a circle and a vertical line inside. 

Of course, I know what it is.

"It's the sign of the Deathly Hallows," I say, and they both look up at me.

"The what?" Harry asks.

"The Deathly Hallows," I repeat, "Weasley, surely you must know that." I look at him over my shoulder.

Weasley gets up from the bunk and approaches.

"Er... not really?" He says, studying the sign.

"Come on." I roll my eyes. "The Tale of the Three Brothers."

_Everyone_ knows it. Well, Granger is a Muggleborn, and Harry had been raised by Muggles. But Weasley can't _not_ know it.

"Oh, _that."_ He grins. "Yes."

"But what does the sign mean?" Granger asks. "The Deathly Hallows are not mentioned anywhere in the book." 

I reach out over Harry's shoulder and close the book to take a look at the front cover. It's an ancient copy of _'The Tales of Beedle the Bard.'_ Written in runes and so ancient, in fact, that...

"Where did you get it?"

"Dumbledore left it to me in his will."

_Oh_

"Okay, but... why would Dumbledore leave you a book of kids' stories in his _will?"_

"I don't know." Granger shakes her head. "I've been trying to figure it out ever since. Surely, he meant for me to find some information there."

"But why wouldn't he have just _told_ you, or... written it down in the will, or... I don't know... anything but leave you with no clue, doing guesswork on something you have no knowledge of?" I really understand very little of Dumbledore's actions.

Harry looks up at me and makes a face and then laughs bitterly, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Believe me, we ask ourselves the very same question every day since he died and all hell broke loose."

"Malfoy, do tell us about the Deathly Hallows," Granger says, "it's not like we have any better ideas of what to do."

"Yes," Harry agrees, "and this sign keeps popping up."

But everything is written there, there's not much I could add. "Have you read The Tale of the Three Brothers?" I look at Granger.

"Yes."

"Would you please, read it aloud?"

"Read it?"

"Yes, if you don't mind." I sit down next to Harry, and he takes my hand under the table.

We are not hiding or anything, or pretending that there's nothing between us. Since the day Weasley destroyed the locket, we've been very obviously a couple, no less than Granger and Weasley are. But we don't go around snogging in their presence or anything like that. Sometimes Harry will take my hand or lean against me by the fire, and we sleep in one bed now. That's all. 

Granger and Weasley do basically the same.

There are two rooms in the tent, divided by a flap. So Weasley just moved their bunk. The morning after destroying the locket, he woke up and stared at Harry snuggled next to me in my bed. That night he and Granger moved to another room, and that was it.

"Okay," Granger says, and Weasley flops down cross-legged on the floor.

_"There were once three brothers,"_ she begins, _"who were traveling along a lonely, winding road at twilight."[7]_

"Midnight," Weasley says, "Mum always said midnight."

"Then would _you_ rather tell us, Ron?" Granger rolls her eyes.

"No, twilight is fine, go on."

_"In time, the brothers reached a river too deep to wade through and too dangerous to swim across. However, these brothers were learned in the magical arts, and so they simply waved their wands and made a bridge appear across the treacherous water. They were halfway across it when they found their path blocked by a hooded figure..."_

...

"So." I tear a piece of paper out of Granger's notepad and take the pencil. The three of them stare at me. "Here it is."

I draw a vertical line. "The Elder Wand."

"The Resurrection Stone." I draw a circle around the line.

"The Cloak of Invisibility." I enclose the line and the circle within a triangle.

"The Deathly Hallows. The one who attained them all would be the Master of Death." 

"If you were only allowed one of the three Hallows, which one would you choose?" Weasley asks in wonder.

"The Stone," Harry instantly says. 

"The Wand," Weasley adds, while Granger and I say "The Cloak" without a second thought.

"Are they real?" Harry asks at the same time as Granger says: "It's only a legend." 

"Draco?" Harry turns to me.

"I don't know... I always thought it to be a myth."

"The Cloak," Weasley stares at Harry. "Holy shit, they _are_ real."

"They are not." Granger shakes her head. "It's only a children's book, Ron."

"But how many invisibility cloaks that fit the description do you know?" Weasley insists. "If the Cloak is real, so are the other two."

Granger shakes her head.

"Maybe he's right, Hermione." Harry reaches under the collar of his sweater and retrieves his tiny leather pouch. He rummages inside it until the buzzing Snitch flies out and lands into his palm.

"It's here." He shows us the Snitch. "The Stone. Now I’m sure it's here. Dumbledore hid it inside; why else would he leave me the fucking _snitch?"_

"Harry..." Granger rolls her eyes.

"No, Hermione, just think!" Agitated, he springs on his feet. "It fits! He left me the Stone, and he left you the book! With a legend of the Deathly Hallows _and_ the sign drawn above it. He drew it himself, he gave us a clue! The Cloak - I already have it, so..." He looks at me. "The only thing is left to find is-"

"The Wand," say Weasley and I together.

Harry grins. "And the Master of Death can defeat Voldemort!"

_‘... Voldemort... Voldemort... Voldemort...’_

The sound echoes in the air; it vibrates as though through the water, muffled and loud at once.

My heart gives a jolt.

_What?_

The four of us look around. The air shifts and shimmers, and there is a sudden loud _crack!_ of Apparition outside. And another. Again and again.

"In the tent!" A voice shouts, and footsteps scatter, approaching over the stones.

In horror, I stare at Harry and he stares back at me.

I don't understand what's happening. Who is that?! How did they find us?! The flap of the tent opens.

"Harry," Granger whispers.

He looks at her. A silent spell from her wand hits him square in the face, and he cries out, clutching at his eyes.

"What?" I begin to stand up when people flood the tent, and I find myself knocked down, with my face pressed into the floor.

Next to me Weasley grunts. Granger shrieks, there's a commotion, the chairs fall.

"Drag them outside!" A voice says. I know that voice. We are doomed.

"Well, well...look what we have here," Fenrir Greyback says, eyeing Granger.

"What's your name, pretty?" He touches her cheek.

"Don't touch her!" Weasley wrenches against his bonds.

"Penelope Clearwater," Granger replies so naturally that if I hadn't known otherwise, I'd believe her.

"Is that your boyfriend?" Granger says nothing, and Greyback turns to Harry. "What's your name, ugly?"

Harry's face is deformed and swollen with the stinging hex. He can barely open his eyes. "Vernon Dudley."

The man peers close at him. Too close, too long, and finally takes off Harry's glasses, turning them in his hands this way and that. 

"I don't know... you might be reminding me of someone." He puts the glasses back on Harry’s nose.

"I bet the ginger is a Weasley," someone says, "they all look alike."

"What's your name?" He shoves Weasley in the ribs.

"Robert... Robert Weasley."

_FUCK_

I would cover my face if my hands weren't tied behind my back.

"Guys, what would you say if I told you that we found a Weasley, a girl and a guy in glasses?" Greyback grins. "It might be we captured Harry Bloody Potter." His gaze meets mine, and he stares, stares hard. Stares so that I know - he knows me, he has recognised me, and there's no point denying it. Slowly, he approaches.

"Holy shit," he says, "it's Malfoy. It's Lucius Malfoy's brat." He grabs my throat. "You are _dead,_ everyone says so."

"We should ransom him," someone says behind me. "The Malfoys will pay good money."

Greyback releases me and studies Harry for a long time.

"Maybe you're right," he says. "We are taking them to the Manor."

____________________________________________________________

[3] Celario_ – _derives from the Latin word ‘celare’ – ‘to hide’, is a protective spell that hides an area it is cast around from view. There is no such a spell in the canon ‘Harry Potter’ books, so I made it up myself.

[4] – dialogue between Harry and Hermione in the tent, from the film “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” Part 1.

[5] – dialogue between Ron and Harry in the tent that results in the fight, from the film “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” Part 1.

[6] – monologue of the Horcrux addressing Ron Weasley, from “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” by J.K. Rowling

[7] – ‘The Tale of the Three Brothers’, from “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” by J.K. Rowling


	3. Vulnera Sanentur

**Chapter 3**

**VULNERA SANENTUR**

"Draco!" Mother cries out.

I look at her through the blur in my eyes. I missed her. I _missed_ her so much. She runs forward and grabs me, and squeezes me so that I can't breathe.

I can't breathe.

_I can't._

_"DRACO."_

I hug her and stroke her hair and tuck her head under my chin.

"They told me..." She sobs, digging her fingers into my back. "They said..."

"I know, I know," I repeat again and again.

All I want is to hold her, I will never let go, _never. _We sway in place in the middle of the Entrance Hall. All I ever wanted was to see her again, and now she is here, and... Why then do I feel dead? Why do I struggle not to wail in despair now that I see her?

"They must have held the boy captive." Greyback shoves Harry in the back so hard that he stumbles forward. "I'm not sure who is _this one,_ but there we probably have _The_ _Mudblood_ and the Weasley brat. Do you recognise them, my lady?"

I squeeze my eyes shut, feeling as Mother pulls back.

"Yes," she says after a brief hesitation, and my stomach drops. _"Yes."_ She repeats, and I know there is no hope, nothing. "I am not sure _which_ Weasley this one might be, but the girl is Hermione Granger. And..." She trails off.

When I open my eyes in silence, I know _who_ she is looking at. I stare down at her, at the side of her face in front of me, at her fair locks escaping the loose bun on her nape. Anywhere but at _him._

I don't want to look at him, don't want to turn my head, I cease to even breathe, lest I give him away.

"Who is this, Draco?" Mother turns to me, and now I have no choice but to finally look at Harry.

With his hands tied behind his back, he stares down at his feet. A few strands of black hair have escaped the hairband; they fall on his face, on his red puffy cheeks, obscuring his swollen eyelids and the piggy eyes, and the faint line on his forehead, that I know is still _there,_ despite Granger's stinging hex. There's nothing of _him_ in his face but the glasses. The glasses are the same. The fucking glasses.

"Vernon Dudley," I reply, surprising myself with how smoothly it comes out.

"Who is he?" Mother releases me and walks towards Harry.

"He's just... a guy." I shrug and stuff my trembling hands in my pockets. "He's just..." _Get a grip._ "They... the Order, I think," I continue, "they brought him into the house of Black and he stayed with us - with _them."_ I nod at Granger and Weasley. All this is so feeble; I don't know what I hope for.

"What's happened to his face?" Mother presses the tip of her wand under Harry's chin and tilts his face up. _"Look at me,"_ she hisses.

"I hexed him," I reply, "we fought - just before... Mr. Greyback saved me."

"Stinging hex, I see." Mother studies Harry's face. "It will wear off soon enough."

"Cissy?" The voice echoes around the hall.

I go cold.

No

No

"What's going on here?" 

_Click-click-click-click_ of her shoes on the marble.

"Draco?" Aunt Bella says faintly, and then louder: _"Draco?!"_

I have no choice but to turn to her.

"But... _HOW?"_ She demands. "You're dead."

"They held him captive all this time," Mother replies, “just look at him.” She gestures at me. In dirty jeans and a battered brown sweater, I don’t belong in the Manor Entrance Hall. 

"But Snape..." Aunt Bella's face twists. _"Bitch!"_

"Severus thought him dead, but he was mistaken." Mother steps close to me.

"Long story short," Greyback barks, "I brought you your son, and I want my reward."

"How did you find him?" Aunt Bell asks.

"They broke the Taboo, said the Dark Lord's name." Greyback grabs Granger by the arm. "The Mudblood and the Weasley. They are on the top list, I want my reward."

"What?" Aunt Bella finally turns to him. _"Who_ did you say?"

Greyback pushes Granger forward.

"Ahhh..." Aunt Bella hisses, striding towards Granger. _"I see..._ Where's Potter?" She looks around the hall.

_Please, please, please no._

"Where's _POTTER?!"_ She shouts in Granger’s face, grabbing a fistful of her hair.

Granger cries out but says nothing.

"Draco?" Aunt Bella turns to me.

"Draco, where's Potter?" Mother repeats.

"I don't know." I shake my head. "I haven't seen him since... the day Dumbledore died."

"Then who is _that?"_ Aunt Bella points at Harry.

"Vernon Dudley," I reply.

_"WHO?!"_ She shouts.

"Calm down, Bella," Mother says, "Draco doesn't know where Potter is."

"I think," I begin, making Aunt Bella look away from Harry and turn to me, "Potter may be even dead by now, but the Order conceals it."

"Okay and good." Greyback steps forward. "What about my reward?"

"Lucius will thank you generously." Mother turns to him. "And I am sure, once he is informed about these two, the Dark Lord-"

_"WHERE DID YOU GET IT?!" _Aunt Bella knocks Greyback off his feet with a spell and strides to his prone form. "Answer, dog!"

"Wha..." Greyback props himself on his elbows, but her shoe kicks his side.

She grabs at the sword of Gryffindor fastened to his belt and wrenches it out.

"It's _mine,_ bitch." Greyback scrambles to his feet. "I found it in the tent when we came upon these fuckers. It's mine now."

With a flick of her wrist, Aunt Bella sends him flying into the corner. Greyback hits the wall and falls still. She turns to us, sword in hand and her eyes wild.

"Throw them into the cellar!" She shouts. "Leave the girl. We'll have a little chat."

Weasley wrenches forward as Greyback's people grab his shoulders. "Don't you dare touch her, bitch! I'll kill you!" He shouts as they drag him and Harry towards the stairs leading to the dungeons.

"What is the meaning of this?" Father appears in the doorway.

He walks into the hall, looking at Granger in the middle with her wrists bound, then at Aunt Bella… and finally, his gaze lands on me.

He stops dead. "Draco?"

I look at him.

"Draco?" He hurries forward and almost stumbles, and Mother has to steady him by the arm.

"Father." I throw myself at him.

He grips me, clutching, reeling, we almost fall when Mother puts her arms around us both. All this time I thought about Mother. I missed her the most and him – very little. He clutches at me, and I feel myself a little boy. Father. My Father – tall and proud and strong. Now I know I missed him, I know I longed for him, too.

"Son... but how?" Tears brim in his whisper. 

I clutch at him and weep.

Huddled together, we stand like that for an eternity, and I would call it happiness, but... I can't. It's not happiness, it's never happiness if _someone_ is lacking here. If _someone_ is absent, as though a missing jigsaw piece. Unless he is here, until he is here with me, I won't know happiness ever again.

"They held him captive," Mother says, "all this time. Look at him, they starved him and beat him." She points at the fresh bruises Greyback left on my face.

"Who?" Father finally releases me.

"Potter's friends."

"But Severus told us they killed you." Father studies my face. 

"Snape, the sneaky lying bitch he is!" Aunt Bella chimes in. "I broke the Unbreakable Vow," she mimics his voice, "let's just wait to hear what song he will sing to the Dark Lord." She cackles, but suddenly her face turns grave. "Before we summon him, I have some business with the Mudblood."

With a flick of her wand, she throws Granger on the floor and unties her wrists.

"Tell me, girl." She stands over her. "Where did you get the sword? Tell me the truth."

"We found it."

"Where?"

"In the forest." Granger's voice trembles.

Aunt Bella bends down and slaps her, hard. "Don't lie to me. Where did you get it?"

"I swear, we found it in a pond! In the forest!" 

"Crucio!"

Granger shrieks, her whole body arching in agony.

"Where did you get it? How did you get there?!"

"I swear..." Granger weeps, and my eyes fill with tears.

"Crucio!"

Inhuman shriek echoes around the hall. People dash inside and stare. I see Avery, Yaxley, Dolohov, Goyle's father, Pettigrew and several faces I don't know.

Aunt Bella kneels and grabs Granger's wrist. In horror, I realise she is holding her dagger in her other hand. The knife digs into Granger's forearm, and I think I might faint. I squeeze my eyes shut. Screams fill the hall, screams of a power I've never heard before. I can't help her, I can do nothing. _Nothing._ I wouldn’t even if I could. For Harry's sake. _For Harry. _I stand back and let her be tortured. 

I will do anything. For Harry.

Mother's hand at the small of my back steadies me. I avert my face, my gaze sliding over people around the hall. I won't listen. If I could press my hands to my ears and stop hearing... I can't. I'll just look away and won't listen. My eyes drift along the wall... to the left, where there is no one there, just the open doorway with the spiral staircase to the dungeons. They dragged Harry down there and threw him into a cell and... Tonight, when everyone is asleep, I'll sneak down there and figure something out. I don't have the key, but surely there must be a way... 

Weasley appears in the doorway with Harry behind him. His face is back to normal again – recognisable.

_No_

With his wand drawn, Weasley dashes into the room and Harry follows.

_No_

With Granger's shrieks filling the hall, everyone's eyes are on her and Aunt Bella.

I shrug my wand out of my sleeve and carefully bend my wrist, pointing it at Harry. He clutches at his face and stumbles just at the moment when Weasley shouts: "Get off her, bitch!"

I exhale and concentrate, and think _'Protego Totalum'_ with all my might, pointing my wand in their direction. This is all I can do. I'm not sure if the spell has even reached them.

"Ah! The _boyfriend,"_ Aunt Bella cackles.

In the sudden silence, all eyes are on them, and so are wands.

"Hermione!" Weasley dashes to her still form on the floor.

Dread fills me. 

_Please, don't let her be dead._

Harry draws his wand, sending something at Aunt Bella, but she deflects it almost lazily.

"How did you get out of the cellar, ugly?!" She dances around him in a swirl of dark robes and her long hair flying.

I look at Harry, weak with relief. His face is not _his_ again. Though clumsy as it was, my hex did its job, rendering him unrecognisable. It wasn't a stinging hex, it was a reverse-modifying one. His face is neither red nor swollen, it is no longer deformed. But it's fat and round, with full heavy cheeks, a double chin, flat jaw, and a narrow forehead. The only thing I left unchanged is his hair, but they've already seen it, I couldn't take that risk. His nose is tiny and short, the eyebrows are pale and almost non-existent. His full plump lips have turned thin and narrow, and his tiny rabbit eyes behind the glasses are very closely set. There is a big purple bruise on his forehead. He looks grotesque and nothing like Harry. In fact, this face is the literal opposite of Harry's, and if anyone would only stop to think and put two and two together... But no. No one in the room seems to be bright enough.

With their wands drawn, Death Eaters close the circle around Harry and Aunt Bella. She slashes her wand and a streak of red drips down Harry's forehead. "Tell me, ugly, where did you get the sword?"

Harry ducks and rolls over and springs back on his feet.

"Where's _Potter!_ Tell me!" She suddenly backs away from him, heading towards Weasley kneeled by Granger's prone form on the floor. "Tell me _now,_ or I'll gut them both!" She picks up the dagger from the floor and wrenches at Weasley's collar.

Harry's hex misses her, and she presses the blade under Weasley's ear.

Harry stills.

_No,_ I want to shout, _Run, you idiot. Leave them, they both are as good as dead._

_Save yourself._

_Run, Harry._

'Squeak-squeak-squeak...'

The faint sound disturbs the silence.

'Squeak-squeak-squeak...'

"I'm summoning the Dark Lord," Avery says, rolling up his sleeve, "Those three obviously know where Potter is, they'll answer _him."_

_"No!"_ Aunt Bella shouts. But it's too late. Avery touches the Mark on his forearm. Everyone draws their breath.

'Squeak-squeak-squeak...'

'Squeak-squeak-squeak...'

Aunt Bella looks up, and I follow her gaze.

There, under the ceiling, a house-elf is sitting astride the chandelier. His ugly little face determined, he twists the metal bulb on the heavy chain - around and around - his big ears flapping with every move.

As though in slow motion, I stare as Aunt Bella dives aside with a shriek.

"Ron!" Harry shouts, and Weasley, with his face twisted, jerks Granger out of the line of the falling chandelier.

Everything turns into chaos. People shout, shards of glass and debris scatter in the air, and I feel my lips sting, my temple, my forehead. I cover my face and suddenly hit the floor. I guess my Father has knocked me down. Amidst the roar and chaos and hexes flying, on all fours, I crawl into the corner. When I finally manage to look up again, I see Harry and Weasley pick up Granger's unconscious body as the elf jumps on Harry's back from behind - and they are gone, leaving only a silvery swirl shimmering in the air. 

With a grunt, Aunt Bella throws her dagger in their wake. It cuts into the mist and dissolves without a trace.

**

"Rise, Draco."

Trembling, I get to unsteady feet. I've almost forgotten how it feels to be in the Dark Lord's presence.

"You've changed." He cocks his head, surveying me from his high seat.

"My Lord." I bow my head.

Of course, I've bloody well have. Ten months on the run, living in the woods, stealing, hiding, _hiding._ My worst enemy has become my... _everything._ I was possessed by a fucking Horcrux and witnessed him possessed. I fought him and kissed him and saved his life. I made love to him and let him into my very soul. And now I've lost him.

Of course I've fucking CHANGED. 

I'm not the one whom Harry hid in the Room of Requirement and let into his house last summer. I'm someone else, and never in my life will I be the same again.

"Look at you. Not a boy anymore, but a man grown." He shifts in his chair. "Now tell me, how did it happen that you survived Dumbledore's Killing Curse?"

At the edge of my vision my Father shifts, but I do have the answer to that. While the Dark Lord was skinning Aunt Bella for the sword of Gryffindor (though I had no idea what he was on about) and letting Potter's people go, I rehearsed my every possible answer many times.

"I didn't, My Lord."

"How so?" He raises his eyebrow. The skin of his forehead wrinkles where the eyebrow is supposed to be. He has no eyebrows.

"Dumbledore was old, wounded and very sick, My Lord. By the time I cornered him at the Astronomy Tower, almost all his strength left him." I say each word with precision, trying not to rush my speech, lest I get tangled in words and my resolve evaporates. "I cannot say in detail, because his curse rendered me unconscious, but I may take the liberty to presume that he lacked the power to fulfil it. It hit me but didn't reach its aim."

The Dark Lord frowns and studies me for a moment. "Very well, that seems plausible enough, though the whole truth we will never know. The old man took it with him to his grave." He cackles, and giggles scatter in the mob around the hall.

"Which brings me to another issue." He waves his hand, and I brace myself for whatever is to come.

"I already told this to your parents last summer, that you had proven yourself to be the most faithful servant indeed. I could not say this to you, because you were _dead _at the time._"_ He laughs. A high-pitched sound. "But now here you are - standing tall and proud. You have done well, Draco. I am most proud of you. Welcome back." 

He spreads his arms wide. Uncertain of what to do next, I look at him. Does he want to _hug_ me or what? My palms are clammy.

_Clap-clap-clap_

The Dark Lord claps, and everyone joins the applause.

I exhale in relief and bow. 

"Now, back to the matter at hand," he raises his voice, and silence falls instantly. "What do you know about Potter's plans, schemes, whereabouts?"

I gather myself. "Unfortunately, they kept me ignorant, My Lord. They held me in the cellar all the time. Having been forced into hiding in the woods, they dragged me along, but they kept me restrained and never discussed anything in my presence."

"Why didn't they just kill you?"

"They wanted to ransom me to my Father. The Order needed gold, they said."

"Where is Potter? They say he wasn't there with you when the Snatchers got you today."

"I haven't seen Potter since the day of Dumbledore's death, My Lord. When I came to my senses, I was already captive, and there were only two of them: his friends, Granger and Weasley. Potter never appeared, and I even began to wonder whether he was dead."

"Greyback's people brought in four of you today."

"Vernon Dudley was with them, a man of the Order."

The Dark Lord stands up and clasps his hands behind his back. "Could it possibly mean..." He heads down the steps of the dais. "That Potter has indeed been dead for a while, and they conceal the truth?" 

"I cannot presume, My Lord. It may be so, or may not."

My whole body trembles faintly from standing upright for so long, or maybe it's out of fear of the Dark Lord, or perhaps because I haven't eaten all day... and Harry – _Harry has escaped._ I'm shaking with relief.

"I know, boy," he snaps, "I was thinking aloud." He waves his hand at me. "You are dismissed."

I bow and head out of the hall on wooden legs, feeling everyone's stare.

"Dismissed. All of you! Leave me alone, I need to think."

There's a shuffle of feet and murmurs. I stride out of the Great Hall and along the corridor. I don't know where I'm going. Away. Away from him. There's a noise of voices, people flooding out of the Great Hall. I speed up, taking a turn to the right. I don't want them to follow me.

"Draco." Mother catches up with me. "Come." She tugs at my sleeve, pulling me into an alcove. She touches the wall and it slides to the side, revealing a narrow spiral staircase. "This way to my chambers," she says.

**

"Your hair has grown long." Mother smiles at me lovingly and tucks the strand behind my ear.

I am clean and warm and cosy in my pyjamas. I have taken a bath and washed my hair several times. Hot dinner awaits me at the table by the French window, and my bedroom is as splendid as ever. _And Harry has escaped._

Then why do I feel sick?

"Do you want it cut?"

"What?" I haven't really been listening. My mind drifts.

"Do you want your hair cut? I'll summon the elf."

_No_

"No." Tears prickle my throat, I avert my eyes. "No. I want to keep it..."

"Oh... of course." Mother strokes my hand. "You would like to keep it long, like your Father's."

"Yes," I whisper, "yes." And weep.

**

I sleep for ages, aware of it even in my sleep. My dreams are a weird mix of nightmares and our nights with Harry in the cave. I scream or moan, I'm not sure, maybe both. When I finally wake, Mother is there, watching me from the armchair, a soft glow of a small table lamp leaving her face in shadows.

"What time is it?" The sky outside the window is faded, pale grey-and-pink. It may be dusk or dawn, I cannot tell. 

"Half-past seven in the evening." Mother rises from the armchair and approaches my bed. "You've been sleeping since yesterday afternoon. Father came to see you several times." 

I smile faintly.

She sits at the side of my bed. "How do you feel?"

I sit up and tuck a pillow behind my back. "Rested." 

She takes my hand in hers. "I still can't believe you are here. For almost a _year_ I believed you were dead, Draco." She bites her lip, and there's this crease between her eyebrows, the one that tells me she's fighting tears back. 

I lean forward and hug her and stroke her hair. "For almost a year I believed I'd never see you." I don't want to make her cry ever again.

"They didn't hold you captive, did they?" Mother whispers into my ear.

I still. "What?"

"You lied, they didn't hold you captive."

I pull back and stare at her.

"I saw what you did to Potter's face when he barged into the hall. Everyone was looking at Bella and the girl, but I looked at you. You modified his face to make him unrecognisable."

Lost for words, I gape at her.

"You tried to protect him, Draco, why? Because he's not an enemy - is that it? That's when I realised all your talk of Vernon Dudley was a lie."

There's no point in denying. She knows me too well. 

"You lied to the Dark Lord, Draco. You stood before him and lied to his face. That is when I became truly afraid. Your whole story was a lie to the last detail." Mother's face is grim. "If you slipped, if he as much as suspected anything. One word, Draco... a wrong word, a glance - he would have used Legilimency on you, and it would have cost you your life."

"I _know."_ I exhale, blinking back tears. "I know. I didn't have a choice."

"But you _did."_

I stare at her, chill spreading through me at the thought of what she is implying. 

_No, Mother, there was no choice. There was never a choice for me of betraying Harry._

"No." I cover my eyes, and my face crumples. "No, I didn't. I would never give him away, I'd rather..."

"Potter?" Mother frowns. 

Wiping my eyes, I nod.

"Draco, dear." She squeezes my hand. "Now you are going to tell me everything from the beginning."

So I do. Everything.

From Sectumsempra and Dumbledore's plan to my staged 'death' and Harry's debt of protection. How he let me into his house, and how we went camping. The only thing I omit is Horcruxes and... _us._

"I see," Mother says when I finish, "you were protecting your friend."

"Yes." I stare down at my hands. "My friend. He was my... _friend."_ I hug the pillow.

"Draco..." Mother pulls me to her. "But you _did_ protect him." She rocks me, stroking my hair. "He escaped to safety, the Dark Lord's none the wiser, all because of you, because you helped him." She means to cheer me up, I know, but her words only make me cry harder.

"He probably went to his death anyway, because this task he's trying to accomplish is _impossible..._ You have no idea." I clutch at her. "He is doomed, and I think... I don’t think I’ll ever see him again."

Mother pulls back and looks at me closely, and something shifts in her face, a flicker of understanding? 

"I see," she says faintly. "I see," she repeats, and says no more. 

We sit in silence only disturbed by my sobs and a stray hiccup. When I finally calm down, her face turns solemn. 

"Draco, listen...considering everything you have told me... The Dark Lord voiced his intention to send you to Hogwarts after the Easter break. I was trying to find a way to persuade him to leave you here by my side. But now... you absolutely must go. You cannot stay here. The Dark Lord _must not_ discover the truth. If he so much as suspects that you lied to him..."

She is right, and everything she says is true... But I don't really care. And at the Manor, at least, I am home.

"I'd better stay," I begin, "with you and Father. I don't want to go to Hog-"

"Draco!"

"I don't care, Mum. He may kill me, but now I don't care. Now that..." I shake my head. "He may as well do it sooner."

_"Shut up,_ you idiot," Mother hisses. 

My Mother had never laid a hand on me, but now I'm sure she's about to slap me. She doesn't.

"You _are_ going to Hogwarts. If you don't care for your own life, think at least about me and Father. We’ve only just found you. Do you think I give a damn about the Dark Lord or his cause?" She whispers angrily. "Your Father brought this plague on us, and now we've gone too far to turn around. But when all this is over, I want my family whole and safe, whatever the outcome will be. This is all I ever cared for. Remember that. You are going to Hogwarts."

"Yes," I say.

I am.

**

It's been a few weeks, and it feels as though I never left Hogwarts. As though nothing has happened. Dumbledore and Horcruxes and the woods. Stolen food and our camping, my fights with Weasley. _Harry._ Here within these walls, all that feels like a distant dream. A weird dream, as though Harry was never _real._

Everything is the same. The way it stood for a thousand years, the way it will be in a thousand years to come. It's just... Harry is not here.

Everything is the same. But it's different. People avoid me. Whisper behind my back. Part of them still thinks I came back from the dead. Though for me it's the other way around: I'm dead _now,_ almost. Only a faint hope that Harry is still out there keeps me going. 

The Carrows.

The Carrows and their rules be damned. I hate them. They favour me. It makes me sick. Although I never engage in the japes and jokes they send my way in classes, it doesn't matter. Everyone thinks I am one of them. Everyone knows the Dark Lord himself sent me here. Everyone recoils.

Sometimes I see Weasley's sister and can't help but stare. Can't help studying her features, her manners, every expression on her face; the way she talks, the way she tosses her hair, her laugh, her frown, and her disdain when she catches me watching. All this - the whole _her_ \- Harry loved. He did. He probably still does.

_If you only knew, _I think.

She glares.

Snape. Sweeping about like a giant bat, he doesn't pay me any attention. He all but gave up the castle to the Carrows.

Mother told me before my departure that the Dark Lord summoned Snape and punished him for the lie about breaking the Unbreakable Vow. Snape begged him to forgive his mistake and arrogance, he said he thought he did break it when I seemingly died and he didn't. The Dark Lord believed him... but Crucioed him anyway.

I wander alone, trying to keep away from everyone. There's not a word of Harry. I go mad. I despair. I fear the worst.

One day, remembering how Weasley constantly played with his damned radio, I decided to try the one in the Slytherin dorm. The thing is old and battered, and when I lift it off the table in the Common Room, dust swirls in the air. I carry it to the dorm that I share with Crabbe and Goyle. There I climb up into my bed and pull the curtains firmly closed. I cast most of the protective and privacy spells we used in the forest and finally switch it on. The old thing cracks and whines. I turn the switch slowly around, trying to catch anything comprehensible. There's a whiff of music. _‘...hooooot looooooooove...’_ a female voice croons.

I turn the switch further.

_"...otter watch is in the air this gloomy, rainy afternoon..."_

My heat starts, I carefully move the switch back and forth, trying to adjust it to the channel.

_“You need a password to tune into Potter Watch.”_

The password? Weasley never used a password, at least as far as I was aware of. I adjust the switch carefully back and forth.

_“You need a password to tune into Potter Watch.”_

Damn.

I point my wand at the radio. “Fawkes.”

If that won’t help, then I don’t know what might. Entering the Great Hall this morning, I overheard a Gryffindor girl whispering to another: “Today’s password is Fawkes.” That could mean anything, really. 

_"Pringles and Prongles on Potterwatch today!"_

It worked. Weasley twins. Though the last time I heard them on Weasley's radio they called themselves Robert and Robin or some such, I have no doubt it's them.

_“Aaaaaaand we have a special guest with the TERRIFIC news for you all. Hi, Billius!”_

_"Hi, Pringles!"_ A voice says. 

_"I am Prongles, and you of all people are supposed to see the difference, but whatever! So, guys, Billius - our special agent in Gringotts - has something to say to you all."_

_"I'll let you know, guys, that Harry Potter and his friends Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley broke into the Gringotts Bank today. A mere hour ago they were seen breaking out through the Gringotts roof, riding a dragon and disappearing into the London skies. The nature of their business remains unknown."_

"_However, that means Harry is alive and faring well! Meet you guys on Potter Watch at 9 p.m. tonight, the password is 'Double door,' if you know what I mean. Byyyyeeee!"_

My heart hammering, I stare at the green canopy of my bed, relief and despair squeezing my chest. Hope and terror. And the sense of doom.

I hug the pillow, pressing my face into it. I squeeze it in my arms, close my eyes and let the tears run. I am starved for his touch, for his face, for his presence, for the mere knowledge that he is _there,_ alive. 

_Keep him safe, let him live,_ I pray to some unknown entity, _This is all I ask for._ _I will never see him again, I will never approach. All I want is to know that he_ _is safe. I ask for nothing more. NOTHING MORE._

**

_"Lightning has struck, I repeat, lightning has struck!"[8]_ The words hit me as soon as I switch the radio on and adjust to the broadcast.

I know immediately: Harry is at Hogwarts.

It doesn't make any sense, it can't possibly be true. Why would he come to Hogwarts, of all places? Still, I don't doubt the meaning of these words. A feeble voice at the back of my mind tries to tell me that he has come for _me._ I stifle it. _No._ He can't possibly know I am here and even if he knew... With everything going on, he wouldn't run to _me._ I still want to believe that he would.

I spring on my feet and dash out of the room. Hurrying along the corridor, I hear noise and commotion, the sound of hundreds of feet running. I follow them - up, out of the dungeons, up the staircase and into the Entrance Hall. The double doors of the Great Hall are wide open and people flood inside. I follow them.

"What's going on?" I whisper to a student next to me.

He doesn't reply and turns away. I angle to the side at the very back of the crowd.

"Silence!" Snape's voice rings around the Great Hall, and the giant double doors slams shut with a deafening _bang! _The noise instantly dies.

Followed by the Carrows, Snape steps onto the dais.

"Many of you are surely wondering why I have summoned you at this hour," he begins. "It has come to my attention that earlier this evening, Harry Potter was sighted in Hogsmeade." [9]

My heart bursts, I dig my nails into my palms.

"Now, should anyone, student or staff, attempt to aid Mr. Potter, they will be punished, in a manner consistent with the severity of their transgression. Furthermore, any person found to have knowledge of these events... who fails to come forward, will be treated... as... equally guilty." He surveys the crowd. "Come forward."

Footsteps echo against the stone. Hard and vicious, determined. Someone is walking to the dais, gasps of shock bursting here and there. 

_No,_ I think, _please no._ Someone has decided to give him up.

I shift to the side for a better view and... 

"It seems, despite your exhaustive defensive strategies, you still have a bit of a security problem, Headmaster!" [10]

My knees go weak. This cannot be happening.

Harry comes forward. From this spot, I only see his back: unruly black hair gathered in a loose bun, his grey hoodie - the very one he was wearing when I saw him for the last time. The broad square set of his shoulders... the frame of his glasses glints against his temple as he turns his head... My throat aches. I can't breathe.

"How _DARE_ you stand where he stood?! Tell them how it happened that night. Tell them how you looked him in the eye, a man who trusted you!" He points his finger at Snape. "And killed him. Tell them!" [11]

_What are you doing, Harry?!_

_Run_

_RUN, you idiot_

"Aha!" Her wand drawn, cackling Alecto Carrow steps down the dais. "The Dark Lord told us you'd come, and here you are."

With a flick of his wand, Snape shoves her aside and descends the steps. Harry's wand slashes the air with a spell, but Snape easily deflects it. Harry casts, spell after spell, and Snape blocks them one by one, barely moving his wand.

"Fight!" Harry shouts. "Fight back, you _COWARD!"_

Snape flinches and finally raises his wand to the gasps of the people around when McGonagall steps in front of Harry, shielding him.

The door of the Great Hall bursts open, and people flood in. They are not students, they are adults. I see Lupin and a woman with short purple hair, a tall black man and the Weasley twins, more and more of them coming in.

"You are done, coward!" McGonagall raises her voice. "The Order is here, you are outnumbered."

The people of the order march along the aisle with their wands drawn and surround Snape, Harry, McGonagall and the Carrows in a wide circle.

A shimmering white streak of light erupts from McGonagall's wand, but Snape blocks it, as well as several other spells sent in his direction by the Order members. He grips the hem of his cloak and makes a sudden weird movement, swooping it in front of him... with a swirl, a black misty mass rises in the air where Snape just stood. To gasps and outraged cries, it swooshes higher and higher to the ceiling, until it breaks through the round stained glass window below the roof and is gone.

"Coward!" McGonagall shouts in his wake.

With a thud, Alecto and Amycus Carrow hit the floor below the dais, as the Weasley twins give each other high-fives.

Silence falls for a few moments. There's a bad feeling in my guts.

Harry cries out and drops his wand, pressing his fingers into his temples. He falls on his knees, and I begin to push my way through the crowd in his direction when a _voice_ speaks to me. A voice whispers inside my head. _The Voice._ _HIS_ voice. 

_"I know that many of you will want to fight. Some of you may even think that the fight is wise... but this is folly… folly-folly-folly... Give me Harry Potter... Harry Potter... Do this, and none shall be harmed. Give me Harry Potter, and I shall leave Hogwarts untouched. Give me Harry Potter, and you will be rewarded... You have one hour..." [12]_

I come to my senses kneeling on the floor. When I look around, I realise the Dark Lord didn't speak to _me_ as I have thought: everyone around me is clutching at their heads, their faces insane.

"What are you waiting for?!" Rings a voice, a familiar voice. I scramble on my feet. "Someone grab him!" [13]

Pansy. 

My heart falls.

She points at Harry. Students back away from him as if burnt. Slowly, he turns to look at her. They stare at each other, and then someone steps in front of Harry, pointing a wand at Pansy. 

Ginny Weasley.

Granger steps forward beside her, shielding Harry from view. Several students detach themselves from the crowd and surround Harry. I see the Patil twins, Longbottom, some Gryffindors, Lovegood. More and more of them come, until Harry is fully hidden behind their backs. Each and everyone is pointing their wands at Pansy.

"Students in the corridors!" Filch runs along the aisle. "Students in the corridors!"[14]

"Mr. Filch!” McGonagall announces. "You arrived just in time. I would like you, please, to lead Ms. Parkinson and the rest of the Slytherin house out of the hall."

"Exactly where is it I'll be leading them to, Madam?"

"The dungeons would do."

Suddenly, the Great Hall is in chaos, noise, and voices of people moving in all directions. Harry makes his way to McGonagall. Led by Filch Slytherin students obscure Harry from my view. I step aside, angling through the crowd in his direction.

"Draco!" Someone grabs my sleeve. "Draco, come on!" Pansy tries to pull me along.

I shrug her hand off. "You go, I..."

"Draco, you heard what... _HE_ said! It's unsafe for us here."

"You go, I'll be there later... _GO!"_ I shout. 

She jumps away from me, shaking her head, and dashes to the door.

I step back and back and press myself to the wall, watching, _watching_ Harry, never taking my eyes off him. McGonagall puts her hand on his shoulder and lets go. Harry runs to the door with Weasley and Granger in tow. I dash through the crowd after the three of them, when McGonagall suddenly blocks my way.

"Mr. Malfoy. I believe you've got lost from your fellow Slytherins." Her voice is grim. She won't let me pass, won't let me follow Harry. "Let me escort you." She gestures towards the Entrance Hall.

Through the open door, I see the retreating backs of the trio hurrying up the main staircase. I follow McGonagall out of the Great Hall and down to the staircase to the dungeons.

"I believe you know your way to the Slytherin Common Room," she snaps, once we descend the steps. "Do me a favour." She gestures at the corridor. "I am quite busy at the moment."

"Yes, ma'am." I head in the direction of the Common Room, feeling her gaze on my back until the corridor takes a turn.

The next turn to the left will take me right to the Common Room's hidden door. I ignore it, quickly walking past, and turn to the right instead, in the direction of the Potions classroom. There I stop and lean against the wall. 

Now what?

I have no idea where Harry is now, McGonagall saw that I'd lose track of where he was going. The three of them ran up the main staircase, they may be anywhere in the castle by now.

I can't imagine what kind of business could have brought him to Hogwarts. So urgent that he risked everything and got exposed. Harry is reckless and hot-headed, yes, but he wouldn't have come here unless he absolutely had to, _unless..._

A chill goes through me.

Unless he believes the Horcruxes are at Hogwarts. His visit to Gringotts suddenly makes sense. The only sense there can be. I have to get out of here and find him. How? On its own accord, my hand reaches into the pocket of my trousers, and the coin slips between my fingers, warming at my touch. _Of course._

At the Manor, I kept it with me all the time but never dared to use it. I didn't know where Harry might be and whether my arrival would do him more harm than good; and anyway, my parents would be punished for my escape - I couldn't let that happen. Now, all I have to do is clutch the coin in my palm, think of Harry and Apparate. So I do, expecting a tug and a swirl, bracing myself for the unsettling disorientation and vertigo that always come with Apparition.

A tug there is and disorientation for sure, but then - nothing. No swirl. I bump into the wall but still remain in the very much same corridor. Cursing, I try again, and my head hits the wall. Only then do I remember the textbook line etched into my memory: _'You cannot Apparate in and out or within Hogwarts.'_

Idiot.

I push myself off the wall and stare at the coin, and suddenly I _know._ No, I don't know where Harry is, or where exactly should I go to find him, but the coin urges me to move, and I obey, certain that it will lead me straight to him. I clutch it in my palm and hurry all the way back, peering cautiously around the corners every time I have to take a turn. When I finally climb the staircase up to the Entrance Hall, the noise reaches me: a loud crash and sounds of fighting, shouts and firing curses. I peer out of the hallway and see a familiar Death Eater whose name I can't remember fighting with one of the Weasley twins. Professor Sinistra is attacking a masked woman. Finnigan slashes the air, sending curses at Greyback. I crawl along the wall behind the pillars of the Entrance Hall until I reach the main staircase. Up, up, up, hurry-hurry, I leap three steps at a time, stumbling, almost falling. I hit my kneecap on the marble step and whine at the sharp pain, scramble to my feet and sprint up-up-up the steps, higher and higher, leaving the noise of the battle behind. I fly past the first landing and the second, and even the third. I don't know where the coin is leading me, but I'm sure I'm heading the right way. On the seventh floor, I grip the bannisters and stop to catch my breath. I look down... all the way down to the pit of the Entrance Hall, and my head swims. I step back and turn around and realise I've reached my destination because I see Harry's back far ahead. He is running, running for his life, with Weasley and Granger in tow. I dash after them, faster, faster, and it finally strikes me that he is heading to the Room of Requirement. There, far ahead, is the blank wall with that damned tapestry, and Harry has almost reached it.

I am about to shout out, to call for him, but his name dies on my lips, because someone appears from the right, from the passage that opens there.

"Goyle!" I shout, and he turns, right at the moment when Harry opens the door to the Room of Requirement. 

"Draco?!" Crabbe emerges on his heels and gapes at me.

"Quickly!" Goyle commands. "They've entered that fucking Room, I saw them. Potter and his friends." He sprints all the remaining distance to the door and catches the door handle.

"Come on! We're gonna bring him to the Dark Lord."

Crabbe hurries to join him and I follow, my mind racing. When the door slams shut behind us, I realise we are in the Room of Hidden Things. Numerous aisles between the heaps of old things piled up in disarray spread before us in all directions. Harry is nowhere to be seen.

"Okay," I say as firmly as I can, putting my hope in any leftovers of my authority over these two that might still be there, "we must split and search the room. Goyle, you go to the left; you this way, Crabbe." I point ahead. "And I'm going down there." I point at the last aisle to the right.

Crabb and Goyle grunt and dash in the directions I pointed out. Good.

"If you meet Potter, call me!" I shout in their wake. _"Don’t_ harm him, he belongs to the Dark Lord!"

Determined to find him first, I dash to the right aisle between the piles of cauldrons and the old broom shed. That's the way to the Vanishing Cabinet, and I can take it with my eyes closed. But no, I don't need to go there just yet. I stop and clutch the coin in my hand, thinking of Harry, and concentrate. It is suddenly obvious that I have to run ahead, and take two turns to the right, past the Vanishing Cabinet, and then duck abruptly to the left, and to the left again, between two piles of old broken chairs that reach almost to the ceiling. Who the hell put them like that and why? I run and run, I have no idea where I am by now, and to find the Vanishing Cabinet again, I will have to return to the door and start from there. My foot catches at something and I trip, landing on my outstretched palms. The coin flies out of my hand and rolls under the battered armchair.

_FUCK_

Cursing, I crawl on the floor and point my wand under the armchair: "Accio coin."

It slams into my palm, and I am urged to spring to my feet and turn around and... see a glimpse of Harry's hair down the next aisle. My heart hammering, I dash forward and find him before a chest of drawers. He lifts something that looks like an old crown or something off the marble bust of an old man, or woman, or... someone.

_"Harry."_ My voice barely obeys me, and it comes out as a croak.

He jerks and turns around, wand in his other hand pointing at me. His eyes widen.

_"Draco."_ He whispers, lowering his wand.

_Idiot_, I think, _if I were an enemy in disguise, you would be dead by now._

"What are you doing here?" His eyes search my face.

He's grown so thin and haggard. Stubble covers his jaw, dark circles under his eyes make him look ill; he looks so unkempt and exhausted... only his eyes... bright and hungry, they have this feverish unhinged glint to them that speaks of his dangerous unyielding will.

There's _something_ about him when he looks at me like that, vulnerability and...

_This is a man at the end of his journey._ The sudden thought scares me.

"Harry, I can get you out of here," I whisper urgently, looking around, lest someone may overhear. "Come with me, we only need to find the Vanishing Cabinet." I step towards him. "It opens to the _'Borgin & Burkes'_ in Diagon Alley. You must get out of Hogwarts. Quickly, we don't have time. Crabbe and Goyle are here searching for you."

"What?" His eyes widen. "No, I can't... I can't leave them." He gestures behind him.

"Take Granger and Weasley with you, but _quickly."_ I grab at his sleeve.

I would launch at him and squeeze him in my arms and kiss every inch of his face and never let go, but there is no time for that, every passing second is the point of no return.

"No, I mean..." He winces and glances at the ugly blackened crown in his hand. "I can't leave all those people; the whole of Hogwarts is fighting Death Eaters. I won't leave, and neither will Ron and Hermione."

I shake my head. _NO. No, no, no!_ If he needs me to beg, I will beg.

"No, listen..." I try to shake him to his senses. "If you stay here, you are doomed. Leave Hogwarts and hide and-"

He shuts me up with a kiss. A desperate, suffocating kiss, drowning me in his heat, in his presence, in _him._ I struggle to breathe, I don't want to breathe ever again, and surety is spreading through me like terror. Because he doesn't agree, he refuses, he _WON'T_ go, and there's nothing I can do to make him. 

This is a goodbye-kiss.

"You go, Draco. Go to the Vanishing Cabinet," he whispers, kissing every inch of my face, just the way I wanted to do it to him, "get out of Hogwarts, away from all this, hide and keep yourself safe." He presses his forehead to mine. "Go to my house, find Kreacher, he will help to protect it, block everyone out and hide you. Tell him it's my order." He presses his lips to mine and stills for a moment and... pushes me away, stepping back.

"I _can’t_ go, Harry," I plead, "I've never meant to, he'll kill my parents if I do. I only wanted to get _you_ out of here."

Shaking his head, he steps back again. "I have to go, I have to..." He lifts the crown in his hand. "This is another Horc-"

The spell hits right above his head, shattering the mirror door of the old wardrobe.

I swirl around. 

"Draco," Goyle says, both eager and disappointed, "you found him first."

He points his wand at Harry. "Cruci-"

I shove him in his side, making him stumble and drop his wand.

"What the fuck?!" He bends down to pick it up.

"I _told_ you not to touch Potter, you oaf! He belongs to the Dark Lord." I point my wand at him, desperately hoping that Harry will take his chance to escape.

He doesn't. He is standing with his wand drawn, looking between us.

A mad shriek rips the silence, and another one, someone is running right at us.

"Hermione?!" Harry turns. 

"Harry! Run! Out of here!" Granger appears from the next aisle with Weasley on her heels.

"Fiendfyre!" She shouts hysterically, tugging at his arms. "Crabbe has conjured Fiendfyre!" 

There's a distant crackling sound and a faint smell of smoke in the air that intensifies with every passing second. 

"Run!" Weasley shouts and the three of them break into a run.

I want to follow, but Goyle next to me draws his wand: "Avada..."

"Don't kill him!" I shriek and throw myself at Goyle "Don't kill him!"[15]

We wrestle, and my wand clatters against the floor; I am no match for him. Goyle grabs a fistful of my hair and drives my head into the wardrobe. Stars bloom before my eyes as my temple hits the hard wooden edge. I try to throw him off, but he grips me by the throat and squeezes.

Crabbe stumbles upon us out of nowhere. "Fire!" He chokes out. "We need to get out!"

I shove Goyle off me, pick up my wand and dash along the aisle, but fire and smoke block my way in the middle. I turn back. The fire roars to the left and right. I dash back, only to find Crabbe and Goyle enclosed in a fiery circle. When the fire catches my hair from behind, I realise we are doomed. I scream and beat it out of my hair, dash to the pile of old furniture and begin climbing it. 

"Draco?" Goyle sounds scared. "What are you doing?"

Hell if I know. Insane with panic, I'm just climbing - up and up, away from the fire. Crabbe leaps forward and begins climbing after me; Goyle follows him.

"What are you doing?!" I shout down at them. "You'll topple it, get down!"

Deep down I know, there's no point. The pile is made of furniture, and once it catches fire... I proceed climbing anyway. I reach the top and stand upright and gasp at the sight that opens in front of me: it is not a fire, it is a _sea. _A sea of heat and red and death, eating, consuming everything around. The stench of smoke throws me into a fit of coughing, and I realise that the Vanishing Cabinet is probably gone by now. No, I must get Harry out of here... But Harry is away, and I'm going to die, Harry is not here... I fall on my knees between Crabbe and Goyle.

"Draco!" A shout from above makes me look up. Harry is dashing right at me on a broom, Granger and Weasley, each on their brooms, are behind him.

"Take my hand!" He shouts and dives, but misses me and rises again, wary of his broom catching the fire.

"Harry!" Weasley shouts.

Harry dives again, his hand outstretched. Crabbe launches forward in his attempt to reach Harry and shoves me aside so that I stumble and almost fall. Crabbe tries again and falls face forward right into the raging flames. In horror, I stare as his form melts and dissolves as though in molten lava.

"Hold!" Harry's hand closes around my wrist. He pulls me on the broom behind him and soars high.

"Ron! Goyle! Quickly!"

Weasley dives and catches Goyle, pulling him onto his broom.

"Harry! To the exit!" Granger hovers above, pointing ahead.

We fly, gathering speed, dodging the heaps of furniture caught in bonfires that reach the ceiling. I grip Harry around his chest, press my forehead into his back and hold on for dear life. At some point, he shifts his grip on his broom and curses, turning the broom around.

"The diadem!" He shouts. "I've lost the diadem!"

I look down, and there it is, hanging off the hook of the flaming umbrella stand. 

"We must-" 

_"NO!"_ I shriek. _"TO THE EXIT!"_

The stand below cracks and falls. The diadem melts before our eyes, turning liquid, getting consumed by flames. A terrible scream, a wail of pain and agony fills the room until the thing dissolves without a trace and disappears.

"Harry, quickly!" Granger flies past, and we catch up with her. She points her wand at the opposite wall that approaches at us at a great speed. "Bombarda Maxima!" 

The wall explodes, and when the debris settle, there is a huge hole in the place where the door should have been. Granger directs her broom and disappears through it, Harry and I follow, and Weasley with a roaring Goyle is behind us.

We burst into the seventh-floor corridor and hit the wall. Harry grunts as I land on top of him. Granger is already running back to the entrance. As soon as Weasley and Goyle fly out of the Room, she points her wand and seals the entrance where hellish flames fight each other, and finally sags on the floor.

I roll off Harry's back and pull him up. "You okay?"

"Yeah." 

His face black with soot, he looks mad, totally mad. I'm sure my face doesn't differ much.

"It was the fifth." He looks at me. "There is only one left, and then..."

_And then he is going to face the Dark Lord,_ I think. I want to break down in front of him and beg _not_ to do that.

"What is the last one?" I ask instead.

"Petrificus Totalus!" At the edge of my vision, Granger knocks Goyle out.

"The snake."

"The snake," I repeat stupidly.

"Yes, Nagini."

"But... to kill Nagini you would have to..." 

"Yes, get close to him." Harry scrambles on his feet and pulls me up. "I have to go." He squeezes my hand. "Take care." He doesn't let go, he stares and stares at me, until Granger says: _"Harry..."_

"Yes, I... yes." He tugs at my hand, pulling me closer, and hugs me.

I grip him. A cry is tearing me. I force it down. _No, not yet._

"Be careful." I pull back and look at him; I want to drink his face in, his eyes, every tiniest line. "Promise me you'll be careful."

"I promise." 

I can't kiss him now, I can do nothing. This is not the time and place. His friends are watching. The madman awaits him. 

We had our last kiss in the Room.

"Remember," I say, "remember that I-"

_I love you,_ I mean.

_I LOVE YOU,_ I want to say.

But his friends are listening.

This is not the time and place.

"I'm on your side," I say instead.

"I know." He nods. "I remember." He releases my hand and turns away, breaking into a run down the corridor.

**

Curses are flying, blinding deafening, crashing down on my head. I duck and run and cast and block. I understand nothing anymore. I am not even sure I can tell _'their'_ side from _'ours'._ Order members and Death Eaters in battle look very much the same.

Which one is _'my'_ side? I don't know. I am insane with terror and barely stand on my feet. I don't think there is _'my'_ side, I don't think I truly belong to one or the other. I just want all this to end. But I promised Harry; the last thing I said to him was that I was on his side. So as soon as I descended from the seventh floor into this hell, I knew that I'd do everything in my power to help Harry's side win. 

I keep my promise.

More than once I covere McGonagall's back, help Flitwick and deflect curses flying at Ginny Weasley. At first, it wasn't that hard, because those Death Eaters who knew me thought I was on their side. Now, it's getting tough. I barely stand on my feet, my whole body aches, and I'm not that much of a fighter. Everyone is exhausted, we've lost people, and _their_ attack never ceases.

How much more? Sharp pain stings my thigh and I cry out, staring at the leg of my trousers that soaks bloody above the knee. I stumble.

"Out of the way, Malfoy!" McGonagall shoves me aside and I hit the wall as she attacks a tall masked Death Eater twice her size. 

I lean back against the wall and sag to the floor. I just need to catch my breath. My mouth tastes of soot, and I haven't had even a drop of water in ages. My leg stings. I point my wand, saying a simple healing spell to knit the wound closed. The gap seals and I rub at my thigh, wincing at the ache that is still there when a voice... _The Voice_ speaks near me, and my heart stops.

I jerk and look around. There's no one, but...

The battle is dying down, people dropping on their knees, clutching at their heads with grimaces of pain, everyone. Even Death Eaters.

My head bursts.

_"You have fought valiantly, but in vain... in vain... in vain... I do not wish this. Every drop of magical blood spilled is a terrible waste. I command my forces to retreat. In their absence dispose of your dead with dignity... dignity... _

_Harry Potter, I now speak directly to you: on this night you have allowed your friends to die for you, rather than face me yourself. There is no greater dishonour. Join me in the Forbidden Forest and confront your fate. If you do not do this, I shall kill every last man, woman, and child who tries to conceal you from me." [16]_

Silence falls. A terrible silence.

People stare at each other.

The remaining Death Eaters scrumble on their feet and dash out of the Great Hall; no one tries to stop them. The Order, the students, the teachers stare into space. Until a woman's wail rises to the ceiling, and I see Weasley's mother kneeling over the body of a red-haired man. 

"Fred!" One of the Weasley twins screams across the Great Hall and rushes to her side. _"FRED!"_ He falls on the body, clinging, clutching at the man, stroking his hair.

"Fred," I repeat stupidly, my lips disobeying me. 

It's his twin brother... _Fuck, it's his twin brother._ I cover my ears with my hands and press hard to block out his screams. In silence, as though in slow motion, I watch Weasley's father approaching, and his sister, and Weasley himself with Granger by his side. He drops her hand and stumbles forward, his mouth open wide... _He’s screaming, too,_ I think dumbly. Weasley falls on his knees beside the body, and Granger steps back, and back, and back, and back. She shakes her head and presses her palm to her mouth. I wouldn't recognise her dirty face. Her back hits the pillar, and she sags on the floor and doesn't move.

I rise on my feet. The floor of the entire Great Hall is covered with bodies - people dead and alive - swaying in place I survey them all, but can't find the _three_ I am looking for. 

They are not here, _THEY ARE NOT HERE,_ the realisation fills me with relief and frightens me even more.

I haven't seen my parents among the Death Eaters we were fighting. I don't see them among the dead. That means... that could mean anything, really... Slowly, I make my way along the wall.

When I finally reach Granger, she is sitting motionless, staring into space. I step in front of her, but she looks right through me.

"Where is he?" I croak.

She looks up and stares and finally shakes her head.

"Where's Harry?" I prop my hand against the wall for support.

"I don't know, I... I haven't seen him."

"What?"

"I haven't seen him," she repeats, hugging her knees to her chest, "since..."

"Since _WHEN?!"_ I want to shout, but only a rasp comes out.

"Since the... Snape died, and he took the memories..."

I don't understand a word of what she is saying. _"Snape_ died?"

She nods. "The snake, it..."

_The snake._

I go cold. 

_'The only one that is left,'_ Harry had said, _'is the snake, and then...'_

AND THEN...

"Where is he? Answer me!" I want to slap and rattle her, so she'll stop staring at me like that and fucking _tell_ me where Harry is. "Surely he hasn't gone to give himself up... It would be madness!" I explain to her, it's essential that she understands. I must convince her that it's utter madness, and wouldn't happen, and Harry would never...

She listens to me, and her face crumples, and she nods, and nods, and nods. And then I know. She won't say it, but I _know._

I knew it all along.

Harry would. He absolutely would go. And he did.

He did.

I crumble.

I drop to my knees, and the wall sways to hit my head. I hardly feel the pain, it's nothing, nothing compared to the one tearing me from the inside. I howl, and people stare. It means nothing to me, they mean nothing. I howl and weep, and will never stop.

When I finally come to my senses, Weasley is sitting beside Granger, leaning his head against the wall; he watches me and says nothing. His eyes are dead. He looks like the one who has shed all his tears. But I am not nearly done. _Not nearly._

I sit against the wall, tears streaming down my face, and wait for the dreadful news to come.

**

_We're on our knees_

_On broken ground_

_Gone too far to turn around_

_Lost our faith and lost the strength to carry on_

_No more hope and no more love_

_Let the children be our judge_

_It's the down, the downfall of Eden_

_ [Eclipse, ‘The Downfall of Eden’]_

"They are coming!" Someone says, and the voice rings loud in the hushed Great Hall. "They are coming!" 

I might have felt fear... once, before... Now, I don't feel anything. I just wait.

There is a noise from the Entrance Hall, a flood of voices and a shuffling of footsteps, and they are finally here.

People enter and spread in a dark semicircle along the walls, more and more of them, they flood inside like dark waters, and nothing can hold them back. 

"Malfoy." Someone tugs at my sleeve. "Come on, get up." Granger urges me to get to my feet. I obey.

She drags me backwards, back and to the right, where we mingle with other students and teachers and people of the Order - with _'our'_ side.

From our side, I look across the Great Hall, at the dark crowd ready to pounce as one monstrous beast... and among them a glimpse of white... two bright blond heads next to each other, turning, searching, looking around, peering into our side. I take a half a step back. I won't think about it just yet.

There's a giant among them: long shaggy beard and hair and a moleskin coat. No, not a giant, it's Hagrid. Hagrid is holding a bundle in his arms.

"Who is that?" Someone says next to me. "Hagrid's carrying... Neville, who is it?"[17] Ginny Weasley pushes her way forward.

I peer at the bundle in Hagrid's arms. It's not a... it's not a bundle, _it's..._

A limp hand is hanging down... an arm in the stained grey sleeve - probably blood or dirt, or... My eyes follow the line of the sleeve up, up to where it joins the rest of... a grey hoodie? Yes, hoodie - I see the hood over Hagrid's arm, and on top of it... black strands of his unruly hair, he is still wearing my hairband... his glasses are askew, and the crane of his neck is not good... I shake my head. Not good. His eyes are closed - he is asleep, _yes?_ His face is peaceful, sleep softening its gauntness, his large nose and the solemn line of his lips. His feet dangle and sway faintly over Hagrid's forearm. He moves... No, it's Hagrid... Hagrid moves. I look up at his face and see Hagrid is weeping. Stop shaking, you oaf, you'll wake him up...

The mob parts and a figure steps forward. Clad in black, it looks like any other, it could be anyone, any of them. But no, it's not anyone, not just _ANYONE_ and never have been.

"Harry Potter is dead!" The Dark Lord spreads his hands wide, as though he wants to hug us all. 

His words cause our side to gasp and waver. His words don't have power over me. All this time I knew, and I was _prepared._ Nothing can touch me, _NOTHING._ Not anymore. 

"No!" Ginny Weasley is not prepared. She doesn't believe him... fool. She rushes forward, but her father catches her arm and drags her back.

"Harry Potter is dead." The Dark Lord smiles. "From this day forth, you put your faith in me. Harry Potter is dead!" 

He waves at the Death Eaters behind him and the mob cheers. His face stony, my Father claps his hands several times. My Mother beside him doesn't pay any attention, her eyes never ceasing to roam over our side... until she spots me and flinches, grabs my Father's arm and leans in to whisper into his ear.

"Now is the time to declare yourself." The Dark Lord raises his voice, and the cheers die down. "Come forward, and join us... Or die."

A man comes forward. A tall blond man with limp long hair. I squint at him. He comes forward from the _wrong_ side; he steps out from behind the Dark Lord's back.

"Draco!" Father says. "Draco." [18] He beckons to me, and I want to step back and blend into the crowd, but people part before me, recoil as if burnt, and here I stand - alone - before my Father and the Dark Lord.

"Draco, come." My Mother's voice rings clear. Calm. Oh-so-calm. She offers her hand.

I take a step forward, and another one, and the next, each next one surer than the last, the fall of my footsteps loud against the stone floor. I hear gasps of dismay and outrage, the crowd shifts around me and withdraws further. They want nothing to do with me. 

"Coward!" I hear. "Coward!" And "Traitor!", "Death Eater scum!", "Turncloak!"

I don't care, they are just words. I don't care. Those who shout mean nothing to me. Nothing. They thought I was on their side, they were mistaken. I never cared for their side. For any side. I was on _Harry's_ side, I promised Harry, and I kept my promise until the very end. But Harry's dead, and I am dead, too. I don't have a side. I never had one. 

All I ever cared for was - _Harry._

I don't understand why half of them are cheering, and the other half recoil in disgust. What use can either side make of a dead man, anyway? A dead man is less than nothing to everyone except his parents. He must pick a side - he must do it _now_ for his parents' sake.

I cross the Great Hall and take my Mother's hand to the applause of the Dark Lord himself.

"Well done, Draco. Well done." He bestows me with one of his best smiles and turns away.

My mother pulls me to the lines of Death Eaters, right next to Hagrid _and..._ From here I can see only the tangled mop of black hair and the side of the marble-white forehead. I grip my Mother's arm. Maybe, when this farce is over and Hagrid puts him down, I'll manage to steal one last look at him. 

I won't break down here; I owe that to my parents.

Mother grips my hand and crushes my fingers so that I wince and look at her. Looking me in the eyes, she briefly shakes her head. If only I understood what she means... I hardly care.

Feeble footsteps disturb the silence as Longbottom limps forward.

"Well, I must say, I'd hoped for better," the Dark Lord comments cheerfully.

Death Eaters around us burst with laughter.

"And who might you be, young man?" [19]

"Neville Longbottom."

People around me roar. I glimpse Aunt Bella's face, contorted with insane mirth.

"Well, Neville..." The Dark Lord cocks his bald head. "I am sure we can find a place for you in our ranks-"

Longbottom cuts him off. "I'd like to say something." 

Gasps of shock scatter among the crowd, and I'm sure Longbottom is about to fall dead. 

However, the Dark Lord doesn't strike. "Well, Neville, I am sure we'd all be fascinated to hear what you have to say."

"It doesn't matter that Harry's gone!" Longbottom begins. "People die every day. Friends, family... Yeah, we lost Harry tonight, but he's still with us, _here!"_ He presses his fist to his heart. "And so is Fred, Remus, Tonks, all of them. They didn't die in vain! But _YOU_ will!" He glares at the Dark Lord. "Because you're _WRONG!_ Harry's cause lives deep in us! In all of us! It's not over!"

_What?_ I think, listening to him. _What are you saying, you fool?_ Harry died and everything died with him. I died. The world ended, how dare you say it doesn't matter?! _CAUSE?_ What cause? I never cared for the fucking cause. 

All I ever cared for was

_HARRY_

Harry told me I'd become a better person, but I know I hadn't. He was mistaken. Harry was always too good to see that. He cared for the cause, for the whole world. I only ever cared for what was mine. _MINE._ He was everything I had. And now there is no Harry. The world ended. Don't you dare, don't you fucking dare say that his death doesn't matter. You know nothing, you stuttering, blubbering fool. I hate Longbottom. I hate him.

A sudden movement at the edge of my vision startles me and I turn. Everything happens in a blink of an eye. The crowd gasps all around the Great Hall. Harry lands on the floor from Hagrid's arms and rolls over, springing on his feet like a cat.

"Harry!" Hagrid roars.

There are hysterical cries and applause from the other side of the Hall, and even the Dark Lord himself cries out.

For a few deadly moments, they stare at each other.

I move before I know it, coming to my senses while already leaping halfway across the Hall. Because he's an idiot, a reckless Gryffindor idiot, and even death hasn't changed him at all. He is wandless. _Wandless._ Standing alone against the Dark Lord.

_"POTTER!"_ I shout. [20]

He turns. I throw my wand at him, and he catches it with a deft movement; my heart sings. I look around, right into the Dark Lord's bewildered noseless face, and there behind him is my Mother, insane with terror. Sorry, Mum, but I have to look out for him.

Harry launches forward and grabs my arm, shoving me behind his back.

_"RUN!"_ My wand drawn, he spreads his hands, shielding me from the Dark Lord's wrath.

I hesitate. "No." I can't leave him, not now, not ever. _Never._

"I said, _RUN!!!"_ Harry shouts at the top of his lungs.

"Malfoy!" McGonagall speaks somewhere behind. "Here, quickly! _Now!"_

I turn around and run for my life, cutting into the crowd between Weasley and weeping Granger. Weasley's sister gives me a solemn nod, and I nod back. 

"Malfoy." McGonnagal briefly squeezes my shoulder. "Stay close."

All this time, Harry is saying something to the Dark Lord. About Snape and Lily. I have no idea who Lily is. I listen dumbly, on and on. About the Horcruxes. About Dumbledore's plan and his death and his wand. About the Elder Wand, and that I - _DRACO MALFOY_ \- happened to be its Master without knowing it, until Harry disarmed me and the wand's allegiance...

_The what?_

What the hell is he talking about? This is the dumbest shit I've ever heard in my entire life. I don't understand half of it, and I don't really care. The only thing that bothers me is _why the fuck_ is he even talking? Why wouldn't he just _KILL_ the fucking Dark Lord and be done with it?

The noseless fucker gapes like a fish, having seemingly forgotten why they are even here. Now, isn't it the perfect moment to strike him once and for all? But Harry goes on and on, and the Dark Lord _listens,_ and when I finally expect the worse, the two of them draw their wands.

"Avada Kedavra!" The one shouts.

"Expelliarmus!" The other replies.

The spells collide and explode in the air. The green one rebounds against the red and changes its course. It hits the Dark Lord square in the chest. He collapses and moves no more.

Silence falls.

There is nothing but silence and Harry in front of me. Alone in the middle, he slowly lowers his - _my_ \- wand and stares at the body of the fallen enemy in front of him.

The next moment, a spell hits in the middle of the Death Eaters mob, and chaos erupts. Both crowds rush at one another, bellowing, firing curses back and forth.

Bewildered, Harry turns around and sees me. He runs forward and waves his wand, casting Protego on me. "You're wandless!" He shouts, dashing past me to the rescue of Arthur Weasley fighting a Death Eater. "Keep away! Go!" He disappears into the crowd.

I turn on the spot, dumbly surveying chaos around me. Death Eaters fight, Death Eaters flee, Death Eaters giving way. And there, in the middle, the body lies motionless. The body of the man who called himself the Dark Lord. I step closer. In his death, he looks like any other. Just a man.

A figure moves in front of me, and I look up. Too late. Aunt Bella’s curse reaches me, and I don't understand... Harry's Shield holds, I am sure, but... 

A stinging pain slashes at my chest, and my blood gushes hot. There's so much blood and there'll be more, I know. I've been here before. There'll be blood enough to drown the bloody Great Hall... there'll be blood and blood and blood on the floor until nothing will remain in me.

I hear Snape's soft chanting and the sound of water flowing in the bathroom... But there's no Snape, this time there won't be... And Harry won't come to apologise because this is not his doing.

_HARRY,_ I think...

... And I am falling, falling, falling...

**

** _*Vulnera Sanentur_ ** _ derives from the Latin words _

_‘vulnus’ – ‘wound’ and ‘sanare’ – ‘to heal,’ _

_and is translated "may the wounds be healed."_

My brow drips with warmth, irritating drops sliding down my temple, down under my ear and beneath my jaw. _"Fuck,"_ I curse and wipe my face. My palm is red. I wipe again at my neck - red.

"You are bleeding, Harry." Ginny peers in my face, too close. "Let me..." Wet cloth touches my forehead, slides down my temple, wipes under my jaw.

I let her.

Her face is bloodied, too, and looks like not her face. Vacant.

"They've told me about Fred," I whisper. "Gin..."

Remus, Tonks, Fred, others, school kids... Is this how victory is supposed to taste?

She nods and bites her lip, and says no more.

"Thanks, Gin." I push myself off the table and stand up.

My head swims as a sudden dizziness overcomes me.

"You alright? You'd better sit down." Gin says.

"No, I'm fine, I really need to..." I nod at her.

_I really need to..._

Slowly, I head along the long tables pushed against the walls. People are sitting, lying everywhere. Tending to their wounds, eating, staring into space. I see Seamus take a swig from the bottle of Firewhisky and hand it to Dean.

Their faces are grim and dirty, a lot of them are crying, but seeing me, faint smiles break on their faces. Each one of them. They wave and cheer and greet me, as though I'm some bloody hero. I don't know why they think I deserve it. So many people died because of me.

The Great Hall is buzzing. People are coming and going through the great double doors. The whole Ministry is here, the Aurors, Shacklebolt giving orders, reporters flashing their cameras. They are crowding and moving... _moving._ Everywhere. Everyone is staring at me. My head is pounding, I feel I'm about to faint.

"Harry Potter! Har-ry! Pot-ter! Har-ry! Pot-ter!" They cheer and cheer and drive me mad.

I walk and squint at their faces. My glasses are dirty, but I see enough to know that I can't find what I'm looking for. I stop on the spot and turn around, peering into the crowd. Around, around, around. My head swims. I don't see...

I don't _SEE..._

There is Ron hugging Molly… McGonagall beside them wipes her eyes… Hermione holds Ginny's hand... there is George, George, _GEORGE..._ I look away, I look at the faces, so many faces, all of them _wrong,_ all of them here, except for the _ONE._

The one I'm looking for.

Desperate, I reach for the coin in my pocket, but it's cold and useless and slips through my fingers onto the stone floor. Fear grips me.

"Draco!" 

People are turning.

"Draco!" I scream at the top of my lungs.

_"DRACO!"_ I shout into the silent Great Hall. And wait. And wait.

Finally... footsteps hurry through the crowd, beating their impatient rhythm towards me. A flash of blond hair. My heart leaps. The crowd parts, I rush forward. I might faint.

"Mr. Potter... Harry!" Narcissa Malfoy grips my hand, catching me from falling. 

I stare at her. "Where's?.."

Her dirty face is contorted in pain; her hair is a nest, loose braid hanging over her shoulder.

"Quickly," she pleads, pulling me along, pushing her way through the crowd.

My heart sinks. I follow. My mind is foggy, and weakness overcomes me so that I can barely move my feet. I let her drag me all the way to the opposite end of the Great Hall.

There, by the wall...

_NO._

**

"Sectumsempra!" He shouts, and blood gushes out of the deep wounds across my chest.

I look down, watching in horror as gashes appear, more and more, as though cut with an invisible blade.

I fall.

I swim in the pool of my blood, and his face swims above me in a fog.

_He's come to kill me,_ I think, _He's come to finish me off._

No, Snape had saved me. 

But this time Snape won't come.

There's no Snape.

_Harry_

Harry will save me. He did before.

But his Shield didn’t. Protego is useless against a curse as dark as Sectumsempra.

Harry is not here, there's no Harry. 

The Dark Lord killed him.

My life is red and flowing all around me on the tiled floor...

**

I’ve seen him like this before, his hair soaked red in a pool of blood.

_Sectumsempra!_ I hear myself shouting a thousand years ago in that bloody bathroom.

I fall on my knees... It finally dawns on me that I can't help him, because I am dying, too. Because Draco is dying, because I failed to protect him. I failed. 

_'Your debt is fulfilled,'_ Hermione told me on our way back from the Room of Requirement. She was mistaken. We are both going to die, because of Sectumsempra - the one that I cast and the one that I didn't.

I failed, and Draco is dying… I can't let him die... I don't care if I live, I'm done living. So many people died because of me. I'm done...

But Draco must live and laugh and love and smile, even when I am gone. 

Because Draco is good and smart and gentle, because he is fierce and kind, and he's never killed anyone - even a bloody chicken. 

_Because I love him_

_'... a protective spell, one of equal power to...'_ Dumbledore says in my head. 

A spell. I saved him out of the fire, but _not_ with a spell... A spell is needed. A spell, Dumbledore said. _The spell._

I draw my wand.

I don't know what I'm doing, but when my wand – _his wand_ \- touches the bloody gap on his chest... 

I sing.

_"Vulnera Sanentur"_

The verse long-forgotten falls off my lips - swift and clear - streaming like tears down my face.

Snape chants in my head and I repeat after him, again and again...

_Vulnera Sanentur_

Because this is what it means.

_Vulnera Sanentur_

Because this is how it should be.

_Vulnera Sanentur_

Because this is how I pay my debt.

_Vulnera Sanentur_

_Vulnera Sanentur_

_Vulnera Sanentur_

_Vulnera...._

The hand grips my wrist and lets go, his touch is too weak and feeble, but it is enough for me to look up. He lies in a pool of blood, but his chest is clean.

He stares at me. Silence rings in my ears.

"Draco," his mother whispers above me.

"Draco," I repeat, "Draco..."

My wand - _his wand_ \- clatters against the floor.

Someone is weeping, their sobs loud in the silent Great Hall. My vision blurs, and I realise that someone is me.

His hand finds mine and gives it a faint squeeze. My head is so heavy. I put it on his chest and close my eyes, listening to the drum of his life under my ear.

_"POTTER,"_ he whispers.

**

_________________________________________________________

[8] – announcement on the radio, from “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” by J.K. Rowling.

[9] – Severus Snape’s speech, from the film “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”, Part 2.

[10] – Harry Potter’s speech, addressing Severus Snape, from the film “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” Part 2.

[11] – Harry Potter’s speech, addressing Severus Snape, from the film “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” Part 2.

[12] – Voldemort’s speech – his voice – whispering in everyone’s head, from the film “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” Part 2.

[13] – Pansy Parkinson, urging everyone to give Harry Potter up to Voldemort, from “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” by J.K. Rowling.

[14] – dialogue between Argus Filch and Minerva McGonnagal, from the film “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”, Part 2.

[15] – Draco Malfoy to Goyle, not letting him kill Harry Potter in the Room of Requirement, from “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” by J.K. Rowling.

[16] – Voldemort’s speech – his voice – whispering in everyone’s head, from the film “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,'' Part 2.

[17] – scene from the film “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”, Part 2.

[18] - scene from the film “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”, Part 2.

[19] – dialogue between Voldemort and Neville Longbottom, from the film “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”, Part 2.

[20] – Deleted scene from the film “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” Part 2.


	4. All is well

**Chapter 4**

**ALL IS WELL**

I open my eyes with a groan. Everything hurts, bandages are too tight around my chest. The sight of the high white ceiling of the hospital wing makes my eyes water.

Mother's face hovers above me. 

"Mum." I try a faint smile.

"Madam Pomfrey," she calls quietly.

Pomfrey's face appears.

"Here, young man." She brings a vial to my lips, and I automatically swallow. 

"Where's-" I manage, and Dreamless Sleep grips me.

**

Next time, I open my eyes to my Mother. Her head rests against the back of the armchair, she breathes quietly in her sleep. I realise that the pain has subsided and it's now a steady, dull throb rather than the sharp stinging I felt waking up for the first time.

The murmur of voices is buzzing around the room. I crane my neck and see that there are a lot of people here. Every bed in the room is occupied. There are visitors here and there; house-elves are helping Pomfrey tend to the patients.

I turn my head to the other side, and...

Harry is asleep in the bed right next to mine. On his stomach under the blanket, his face obscured by the disarray of his hair, he breathes quietly, hugging the pillow in his sleep. I peer at him, trying to tell if anything's wrong. His face is clean, and so is his hair, he's wearing a white T-shirt. I see nothing amiss.

"Draco," Mother says to my left. I turn my head. The movement doesn't hurt at all. "How do you feel?"

"Better," I reply and reach out with my hand. She carefully takes it.

“Here, drink this.” She offers me a tiny vial from the bedside table.

“What’s this?” I swallow the thick liquid and hand the vial back.

“Madam Pomfrey’s orders.” Mother strokes the back of my hand.

"How long have I been here?" 

"A day and a half."

"Is he..." I turn to look at Harry. "Is he wounded?"

"No, just exhausted and in need of sleep," Mother says. "When they brought you here, he followed and absolutely refused to leave. Madam Pomfrey ran diagnostic tests on him and found nothing amiss, except the overall exhaustion. So she ordered him to shower and eat, dosed him with Dreamless Sleep and put him into bed next to you. He woke up twice and went right back to sleep. I couldn't even talk to him properly, thank him for... saving your life, for everything."

"What happened... before the Great Hall?” I ask. I must know. “Before Hagrid brought him in? I mean... the Dar-... the Dark Lord thought Harry was dead."

"He survived another Avada Kedavra, Draco.” Mother shifts in the armchair. “The Dark Lord killed him, but he didn't die - again - I don't know how could that have happened, but I witnessed it with my own eyes. Mr. Potter came to the Forbidden Forest after the Dark Lord summoned him. He didn't fight, he just stood there and let the Dark Lord kill him. Don't ask me, I don't know how, but the Dark Lord failed. When Mr. Potter fell, he ordered me to check whether he was truly dead."

"You?"

"Yes... So I did and told him that Mr. Potter was dead. While in fact, he wasn't. I looked closely and touched the pulse on his neck, and... his eyes fluttered open. I should have been shocked, you know, but I wasn't, because all I could think of was you. I asked him whether you were alive, and he nodded... and I stood up before the Dark Lord and the Death Eaters and told them he was dead."

"You _lied_ to the Dark Lord?" I grip her hand. My Mother could have been killed on the spot.

She squeezes my fingers in return. "Yes, and I would lie again without hesitation, Draco. I was afraid of the Dark Lord, but the thought of losing you - again - scared me like nothing ever did. His wrath would be a small price to pay if you were safe... That's when I understood..." She looks me in the eyes. "You did that, too. You lied to his face. There in the forest, it dawned on me what that truly meant. What _he_ meant to you." She glances at Harry's bed over my shoulder. "He still does."

"He does."

I don't avoid her gaze. After everything that had happened, no way am I afraid to say the words, to admit them out loud. They are just words. 

Mother squeezes my hand and smiles. She says no more and strokes the back of my hand with gentle fingers. Her touch is soothing, my eyes close. 

"When they carried you out of the Great Hall, Aurors came after me."

My heart leaps, and my eyes snap open.

"Mr. Potter testified that my help played the most crucial part in the defeat of the Dark Lord, and even talked to all those politicians. They left me alone. There'll be a trial, of course, but at least they will allow me to wait for it as I please, and not in Azkaban."

"A trial?" I ask faintly.

Of course, there'll be a trial. Of course.

"Mr. Potter told me he would testify for me."

"What about Father?"

“He didn’t say anything about your Father, I don’t think that-”

“I know, I mean…” It hurts me to think about it, of what awaits my Father… I don’t presume Harry would ever want to help him. I would never dare to ask. “Where’s he?” It strikes me that he might be dead for all I know, and Mother conceals it from me. “Is he?...” I stare at her.

“He’s alive, yes. He’s…” Mother shakes her head. “He awaits his trial in Azkaban.”

I should be relieved that my Father lives, but the only thing I feel is despair. He is forever lost to me. Azkaban will turn him into someone else, someone I wouldn’t know anymore. _He’d be better dead than this,_ comes the awful thought. Mother looks at me and I know she is thinking the same.

“Is Aunt Bella?...”

“Dead.” Mother nods. “Molly Weasley killed her.” There’s a quiet satisfaction in her voice.

“I see…” I yawn.

Though my stomach is in knots, I somehow manage to already be half-asleep. Pomfrey has dosed me with something strong again. My eyes are closing. This time, I can't fight the sleep back.

**

When I open my eyes for the third time, I am on my side, and Harry is staring at me from his bed. 

"Hi." His voice is hoarse, but it's _his_ voice.

"Hi," I reply. "How are you?"

He tucks his hands under his cheek. "Good. I slept for ages. Now I'm good."

"Good," I agree, and gingerly turn around to see that Mother is not there.

"She's gone to bed," Harry says, "she told me. They gave her a room... I don't know, somewhere at Hogwarts."

"I really think you should cut your hair." I look at his face, and look and look, and can't get enough.

"And so should you." He grins.

I smile back. "Okay then, no problem," I say. "Let's do it together, once we are out of here."

"No problem," he says and sits up, throwing the blanket off. He's in striped pyjamas bottoms. He gets out of bed and makes a few steps towards me. "Move."

"What?" I stare at him, and then glance at the people in the room.

He rolls his eyes. "Come on, move."

I move. Gingerly, as carefully as I can to not disturb my wounds, I roll onto my back and shuffle to the left, leaving a space beside me. Harry lifts my blanket and slips beneath it, carefully arranging himself on his side next to me.

The chatter around stops.

"Don't mind them". He makes a face and tucks his arm under his head. "I killed fucking Voldemort, can I have a moment of peace with my... _you?"_

Warmth blooms in my chest, as steady and sure as a heartbeat.

"With your _me?"_ I ask. 

It's been so long since I've seen his face this close. _So long._ I find his hand over the blanket. The murmur of voices resumes around us as though nothing has happened. And nothing has, really, it's just the two of us in one bed, with our heads close.

"Yes, with _my you."_ He squeezes my hand.

_I LOVE YOU,_ I want to say... but don't.

Because those are just words and I think he already knows. This is not the time and place. They are just words, they don’t change anything, and they can wait until we're alone. 

"Of course you can," I say instead and squeeze his hand.

He shuffles closer and presses his forehead to my temple. We lie in silence.

** _All is well._ **

_*** The End **_*

_**I am on Tumblr:** **[big-draco-energy](https://big-draco-energy.tumblr.com/)**_

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!  
You are very welcome to share your thoughts in the comments section below. (:


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